Speaker Bios: Conference On Capital Markets In Real Estate

Chris Albano is a Managing Director in Citi’s Institutional Clients Group leading Citi’s syndication and distribution efforts with the firm’s commercial real estate finance group in the Americas. Mr. Albano spends his time working with the firm’s Institutional clients (REITs, Private Equity firms, large CRE Developers), Senior Loan investors as well as other industry participants from around the world connecting capital needs with capital providers. Mr. Albano has placed over $200 billion in CRE loan products to investors from around the globe. Since joining Citi in 2000, Mr. Albano has held several positions ranging from the origination of new debt and equity investments, advisory work on M&A and other strategic opportunities, working out real estate owned, executing investment strategies for real estate investment vehicles as well as the sale of investments at the end of their hold period. Working across a wide range of financing alternatives including corporate credit facilities, bridge financing, M&A, LBO and IPO related financing, CMBS financing and property-level fixed and floating rate financing, Mr. Albano is well versed in nearly all capital alternatives. Mr. Albano covers all commercial real estate subsectors including the office, industrial/logistics, lodging, retail, healthcare, life science, datacenter, self-storage, manufactured housing, multifamily and single-family rental sectors.

Nick Azrack joined Baupost in 2009. As a partner on the firm’s Real Estate Investment Team in addition to heading its Global Asset Management group, Azrack spearheads investments in a variety of real estate opportunities including real estate-related securities, development and redevelopment opportunities across asset classes, distressed debt secured by real estate, lending, and land. Prior to joining Baupost, he was an analyst at Vornado Realty Trust in New York. Azrack is actively involved in a number of civic organizations and serves on the Neighborhood House Charter School’s Board of Trustees and is a board member of Sequoia Heritage.

Andrea Balkan is a managing partner at Brookfield Asset Management based in New York where she is responsible for the overall management of the activities of Brookfield’s real estate credit funds. Balkan joined Brookfield in 2002, where she oversaw the fund raising, investing, and portfolio management of Brookfield’s series of mezzanine debt funds starting with the first fund in 2004. Balkan currently oversees the investing and portfolio management of multiple fund vehicles with over $12 billion in committed capital. Prior to joining Brookfield, she was a director at Merrill Lynch in New York in the Investment Banking and Debt Capital Markets groups, and before that, a managing director at Chase Manhattan Bank. Balkan is a member of the Wesleyan Athletic Advisory Council.

Ankit Bhatt oversees Oxford’s US industrial, retail, and data center investment businesses and is responsible for the overall strategic direction, investments, and portfolio management. He has led Oxford’s entry into the US Logistics space since 2018 which is focused on big-box industrial development (via 50% ownership in IDI Logistics), direct-drive national light industrial platforms, and a significant investment in cold storage (via Lineage Logistics, the world’s largest cold storage operator). Bhatt serves as a member of the Board of Directors for IDI Logistics.

Prior to joining Oxford, Bhatt worked in the mergers and acquisitions investment banking group at CIBC Capital Markets where he was involved in over $20 billion of cross-border transactions.He began his career at KPMG in the Real Estate Transaction Advisory group.

Jeff T. Blau is the chief executive officer and a partner of Related Companies, the most prominent privately-owned real estate company in the United States. Mr. Blau joined Related in 1990. Blau also serves as chairman, and is a founding partner of energyRe, a leading independent company developing transformative clean energy projects across the country.

As chief executive officer of Related, Blau is responsible for directing and overseeing new developments worth more than $60 billion in virtually every sector of the real estate industry. He is responsible for the strategic direction of the company, overall management of the firm, the pursuit of new development opportunities and corporate acquisitions and financing activities across all business platforms.

In his role as chairman and founding partner of energyRe, Blau led the recruitment of the company’s executive management team, and continues to oversee the company's foundational, nation-leading renewable energy projects including Clean Path NY and Leading Light Wind. Clean Path NY is the largest renewable energy infrastructure project in the United States and is an $11 billion transmission-led development, consisting of a 175-mile underground transmission line and 3,800 MW of solar and wind generation. Leading Light Wind, is a $6 billion, off-shore wind project in the New York Bight.

Robert S. Blumenthal joined Deutsche Bank Securities (then Bankers Trust) in 1987 as a Vice President and was elected Managing Director in 1990. In 2015, he was promoted to Global Vice Chairman of Corporate Finance and Managing Director, Real Estate, Gaming, Lodging, and Leisure Group, Americas. Blumenthal has advised on or completed in excess of $20 billion of real estate assignments or transactions. He has senior experience in numerous rated securitized financings, public equity issuances, private equity placements, mezzanine financings, off-balance-sheet acquisition and development programs, and disposition advisory assignments.

Blumenthal earned a BA magna cum laude from SUNY New Paltz and an MPA from the NYU Graduate School of Public Administration (now the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service). Blumenthal was a professor of real estate finance at the NYUSPS Schack Institute of Real Estate MS in Real Estate Development program for more than a decade. Blumenthal has been a long-term chair of the NYUSPS Schack Institute Conference on Capital Markets in Real Estate.

Marty Burger is the former chief executive officer of Silverstein Properties. He led the company’s day to day activities, and focused on its acquisition, development, financing, and fund management efforts in the US and abroad. He is a governor of the Urban Land Institute and of REBNY, a board member of SparkYouth, the Partnership for NYC, the FIDF, National Jewish Health, and the Citizens Budget Commission; and an advisory board member of the Zell/Lurie RE Center at  Wharton, the Center for RE and Finance at Cornell University, NYU Schack, the Fisher Center at Berkeley, M&T Bank, and Lincoln Center.

Alice Carr is the chief executive officer for April Housing, a Blackstone portfolio company committed to developing and preserving affordable housing. April Housing’s initial portfolio consists of 90,000 LIHTC units across the nation and a promise to invest over $500,000,000 more over the next decade to improve, preserve, and expand the supply of affordable housing.

With more than 25 years of industry experience, Carr has dedicated her life to investing in economic development projects and communities in underserved markets across the United States. She began her involvement with affordable housing at the Low Income Investment Fund, a nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution focused on affordable housing and small business lending.

In May 2022, Carr joined April Housing from JP Morgan Chase, where she most recently served as Head of Community Development Banking. At JPMC, Alice led a team that financed the construction and rehabilitation of affordable housing for both low-income families and seniors in communities nationwide. She places an emphasis on DEI initiatives and, at JPMC, was the executive sponsor of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council for the Commercial Real Estate Business and served as a member of the Inclusionary Leadership Forum for the Commercial Bank. Carr currently serves on the Board of Directors for Enterprise Community Investment and Enterprise Community Loan Fund.

Jeffrey F. DiModica, CFA, has been Starwood Property Trust’s president since 2014 and served as  an external director of the company from its inception in 2009 to July 2014. In his  current role he leads and serves as a member of the investment committee of each of  the Company’s business lines including large loan lending, residential lending,  infrastructure lending, property investing, and investing and serving which have a  collective $28 billion of assets under management.

From 1993 to 2014, DiModica served in various investment banking roles at Royal  Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Merrill Lynch. DiModica began his career in the Merchant and Investment Banking Group of the Commercial Real Estate Department at Chemical Bank from 1989 to 1991.

DiModica is a member of YPO (Young Presidents Organization) and serves  on the Miami Advisory Board of the Posse Foundation, an organization that identifies,  recruits and trains individuals with extraordinary leadership potential who are awarded  full-tuition scholarships. He was also the founding president of  www.mitoaction.org, a support, education, and advocacy group for families affected by  Mitochondrial Disease.

Since the beginning of Marcella Fasulo’s real estate career in 2005, she has worked on some of New York’s and the United States’ highest profile transactions, representing both domestic and international clients. Along with her team, Fasulo has secured equity for, or advised on the sale of, $90 billion of asset sales to offshore investors, and countless more to domestic groups. Marcella joined the Newmark platform in 2023, based in New York City.

Fasulo’s transaction experience spans from trophy and boutique assets in New York City, to trophy and large portfolio multifamily assets, to some of NYC’s largest development sites, and large national industrial portfolios. She has sourced 21 first time to US or first time to asset class buyers. She continues to serve as a trusted advisor to offshore institutional and high net worth clients as they expand their acquisitions efforts.

She and her team were previously at Cushman and Wakefield for nearly seven years, where she was most recently a vice chairman. Fasulo began her real estate career at CBRE on the New York City Institutional Sales Group, where she was most recently a senior vice president and served for a combined decade.

Fasulo was named “40 Under 40” by Crain’s New York in 2018. She is on the Membership Committee at WX. She serves on the Board of Advisors of LDS, a Nordic Bond Fund.

Ward Fitzgerald is the chief executive officer and senior managing principal of EQT Exeter, a  global leader in real estate investment management with over 50 offices around the world. Since  founding the firm in 2006, the organization has secured about $30 billion in fund equity  commitments, representing pension, sovereign wealth, endowment, insurance, and foundation  partners from around the globe. EQT Exeter’s funds have made over 1,800 real estate  investments, corresponding to over 2,500 properties in the warehouse/logistics, office/life  science and multifamily sectors, totaling more than $30 billion in property value.

Prior to Exeter, Fitzgerald was part of the senior management team at Rouse/Liberty Property Trust, a  $7 billion publicly traded office and industrial REIT, which he helped take public in 1994.

Jack Gay is a senior managing director and oversees the origination, portfolio management and business development activities for Nuveen Real Estate globally. Previously, Gay was lead portfolio manager and head of the TIAA General Account portfolio management team responsible for the company’s general account investments in real estate, including equity real estate, commercial mortgages, and single asset CMBS investments.

Gay is a member of Nuveen Real Estate’s Investment Committee and Global Executive Leadership Team. He holds leadership positions in several major industry associations, including board member of the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council, member of the Board of Governors for the Mortgage Bankers Association, Chairman of the Capital Council of the Mortgage Bankers Association, and member of the Mortgage and Real Estate Officer’s Council.

MaryAnne Gilmartin is the founder and chief executive officer of MAG Partners, a real estate development company she founded in 2020.

Today, the company has a $1B development pipeline in New York, including RUBY at 243 W. 28th St, a mixed-income residential building designed by COOKFOX that began leasing in April 2023. In addition, the company is developing two other residential buildings, 335 Eighth Avenue and 300 E 50th  St., as well as a boutique office building at 122 Varick. In partnership with Sagamore Ventures, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and MacFarlane Partners, MAG Partners is leading the development of Baltimore Peninsula, a 235-acre master plan in Baltimore, MD. In 2023, 1.1 million square feet of office, retail, and residential development will open on a prime waterfront location.

Gilmartin previously served as President and CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies, where she oversaw a period of game-changing ground-up development and managed its multi-million square foot residential, commercial, and retail portfolio. Gilmartin also served as interim chief executive officer and chair of the Board of Directors of Mack-Cali Realty Corporation.

Alicia Glen is a nationally recognized expert in urban development, infrastructure finance, impact investing and housing policy. She leads MSquared, a real estate impact investing and development platform focused on promoting affordability, sustainability and inclusion in projects and the industry. She is a former New York City Deputy Mayor where she oversaw more than 25 city agencies and authorities and a $100bn capital budget and was the architect of “Housing New York,”  the largest affordable housing initiative in the country.

Prior to serving as deputy mayor, Glen was the head of the Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group, investing over $5 billion in transformational, mixed-use, and mixed-income projects in cities across the country and structuring innovative public private partnerships, including Citibike, New Lab at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Essex Crossing. She is co-chair of the Gateway Development Commission, chair of the Trust for Governor’s Island and trustee of the Citizen’s Budget Commission.  

Todd A. Gomez is the North Region market executive for Community Development Banking (CDB) at Bank of America.  He is responsible for managing a $2.5 billion loan portfolio and leading a team focused on providing a broad range of debt and equity financing solutions to developers of affordable multifamily housing in the Northeast and Midwest. Gomez joined CDB in 2008 from Bank of America Securities where he was managing director of the Affordable Housing Finance Group.  In his prior position, Gomez led a team responsible for providing investment banking and advisory services to residential developers, real estate management companies and owner/operators of affordable housing throughout the US.

Prior to joining BAS in 2004, Gomez served as the chief financial officer of the Chicago Housing Authority where he was responsible for all financing, cash management, accounting, risk management, and financial reporting activity of the Authority.  In addition, Gomez had responsibility for managing the Authority’s $1.5 billion  annual budget. Gomez worked for over 13 years in affordable housing finance and corporate banking prior to joining the CHA in 2000. Gomez specialized in financing multifamily and single-family loan programs through state and local HFAs, as well as acquisition, rehabilitation, portfolio restructuring and program development for real estate developers throughout the US. Gomez has experience in structuring all types of taxable and tax-exempt multifamily financing transactions including: Section 8, FHA-insured, privately-insured, unenhanced, and non-rated.

Gomez is a member of the Urban Land Institute and the Real Estate Executive Council. He currently serves on the board of directors of Enterprise Community Partners NY, NYU Schack Institute for Real Estate, NYU Furman Center, New York Housing Conference, Dartmouth Center for Social Impact, EL EducatioN, and New Jersey Future.

Lauren Hochfelder is a managing director of Morgan Stanley, and co-chief executive officer and head of the Americas for Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing, the global private real estate investment management arm of Morgan Stanley with $57 billion of gross real estate assets under management.

Hochfelder joined Morgan Stanley Real Estate in 2000. She has served as co-CEO of MSREI globally since February 2022 and as head of the Americas since 2016. She previously served as deputy chief investment officer and co-head of acquisitions of MSREI Americas. She has sourced, underwritten, structured, executed, and overseen principal investments across all real estate asset classes, return parameters, and capital structures, and has also been involved in numerous corporate M&A transactions involving both public and private companies.

Jesse Hom is a managing director and global head of Real Estate Credit and Capital Markets for GIC, a leading global investment firm managing Singapore’s foreign reserves. GIC’s long term approach and global connectivity make it uniquely positioned across a wide range of asset classes and active strategies globally (including equities, fixed income, private equity, venture capital, infrastructure and real estate). GIC’s real estate group is an industry leader who invests in traditional private real estate (brick-and mortar assets), public equities, and real estate-related debt instruments backed by multiple property sectors.  Based in New York, Hom focuses on driving performance and growth across both GIC’s Real Estate credit and equity businesses.

Before joining GIC in 2008, Hom worked at JP Morgan, where he focused on origination and structuring for their CMBS structured products group. Hom received a bachelor’s degree and real estate finance concentration from the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University.  He serves as a board member at Safehold Inc. as well as for several other private real estate companies.

Timothy Johnson is the global head of Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies based in New York. Johnson is involved in sourcing, underwriting, negotiating, and structuring debt investments across all asset types and geographies. Before joining Blackstone in 2011, Johnson was a co-founder of BroadPeak Funding, a boutique commercial real estate finance company based in Los Angeles. Prior to founding BroadPeak, Johnson was a vice president in the Lehman Brothers Global Commercial Real Estate Group where he worked from 2002-2008.

James D. Kuhn is president and shareholder in Newmark. In his role, Kuhn aligns all brokerage activity for leasing, investment sales, and debt and equity placement, and maximizes the collaboration of brokerage functions with valuation, global corporate services, property management, and all related service and specialty practice groups. Kuhn also founded and leads Newmark's technology and innovation practice group, Life Science practice, and Landlord Rep group.

Kuhn joined Newmark in 1992 after 15 years in partnership with Bernard Mendik, as owner/manager, where he acquired 11 million square feet of office space and 6,000 apartments; the company was sold to Vornado in 1997. Kuhn serves as the chairman of the advisory board of New York University's Schack Institute of Real Estate. In 2008, he established the James and Marjorie Kuhn Program to Foster Diversity in Real Estate in New York City. At Syracuse, he endowed the James D. Kuhn Real Estate Center at the Whitman School of Management and named the Kuhn Gameday Lounge. Kuhn has been a member of the Syracuse Board of Trustees for 15 years and acted as head of facilities as well as the athletics committee.

Kathleen McCarthy is the global co-head of Blackstone Real Estate. Blackstone is the largest owner of commercial real estate globally with a $585 billion real estate portfolio and $333 billion in investor capital under management (as of June 30, 2023). Blackstone Real Estate is an industry leader in opportunistic, core plus and debt investing across North America, Europe, and Asia. McCarthy focuses on driving performance and growth for Blackstone’s real estate business.

McCarthy previously served as global chief operating officer of Blackstone Real Estate. Before joining Blackstone in 2010, McCarthy worked at Goldman Sachs, where she focused on investments for the Real Estate Principal Investment Area. McCarthy began her career at Goldman Sachs in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group.

Jonathan L. Mechanic is chairman of Fried Frank’s Real Estate Department. Prior to joining Fried Frank as a partner, he was general counsel and a managing director of HRO International, a real estate development organization responsible for developing more than 2.5 million square feet of office space in Manhattan.

Mechanic routinely counsels developers, owners, investors, REITs, and lenders in all aspects of commercial real estate transactions. Notably, he represents JP Morgan in connection with its redevelopment of 270 Park Avenue into a new 2.5 million-square-foot headquarters building; Maefield Development in its approximately $1.6 billion acquisition of 20 Times Square (aka 701 Seventh Avenue); and CWCapital Asset Management in its sale of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village to Blackstone Group and Ivanhoé Cambridge. He also represents landlords and tenants in commercial leasing and ground lease transactions, including his recent representations of 21st Century Fox and News Corp. on their headquarters leases at 1211 Avenue of Americas; Citigroup in its long-term lease of its global headquarters at 388-390 Greenwich Street, and the exercise of its option to purchase the building; Coach in the sale-leaseback of its global headquarters at 10 Hudson Yards; Ernst & Young in its more than 600,000-square-foot lease for its new headquarters at One Manhattan West; Shiseido in its 225,000-square-foot lease at 390 Madison Avenue for its US headquarters; and JP Morgan in its 437,000-square-foot-lease at 390 Madison Avenue.

Mechanic was recently awarded the 2023 New York Law Journal Lifetime Achievement Award and profiled for his outstanding contributions by the Financial Times. He was awarded the 2016 Distinguished Alumnus Award from New York University and the 2016 Chambers USA Outstanding Contribution to the Legal Profession Award. He is a member of the Executive Committee, Board of Governors for the Real Estate Board of New York and the Board of Trustees of NYU Law School. He is also chairman of the Advisory Board of the NYU Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy and a member of the advisory board of the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate.

Lea Overby is a managing director and Head of US CMBS Research at Barclays Capital. Her team covers agency and non-agency CMBS. Throughout her twenty-year career, Overby has focused on various aspects of the CMBS market; including senior roles on the sell-side, buy-side, and at a rating agency. Prior to joining Barclays in 2021, Overby held a similar position at Wells Fargo. Between 2016 and 2018, she oversaw CMBS Analytics and Research at Morningstar Credit Ratings after heading CMBS research at Nomura Securities.

Dino Paparelli is the global head of commercial real estate at Deutsche Bank. He has worked at Deutsche Bank since 2005, in London and New York. Most recently, he was head of CRE Europe. Prior to Deutsche Bank, Paparelli worked at Merrill Lynch in London and Archon Group in Paris and Rome, responsible for real estate equity and nonperforming loan acquisitions. Paparelli graduated from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy in 1998. He served one year in the Italian Navy before starting his career in finance.

Lisa Pendergast is the current executive director of the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council (CREFC). Prior to joining CREFC in 2016, she was CREFC’s 2010/2011 president and a member of CREFC’s Board of Governors for over nine years.

Pendergast has 30 years of industry experience in the structured-finance real estate markets. She has been a top-ranked research analyst in the highly competitive Institutional Investor All-American Fixed-Income Research Team and Orion surveys in the CMBS category.

Prior to CREFC, Pendergast was employed by Jefferies LLC as a managing director, where she was head of CMBS Strategy and Risk in the Fixed Income Division’s MBS/ABS/CMBS Group. Before joining Jefferies, Pendergast was a managing director in the Fixed-Income Strategies Group at Greenwich Capital/Royal Bank of Scotland, where she worked for eight years.

Sara Queen is head of equity strategies for MetLife Investment Management’s (MIM) Real Estate group. Queen is responsible for leading MIM’s $40 billion direct property investment platform, investing on behalf of the MetLife general account as well as third-party institutional investors, including public and private pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and insurance companies.

Queen joined MIM in March 2021. Before joining MIM, she was with Mapletree Investments, a global real estate development, investment and capital management company headquartered in Singapore, where she was head of the company’s North America business. Prior to Mapletree, Queen spent 11 years at Brookfield Property Partners as head of asset management for the company’s US office portfolio, in addition to overseeing strategic planning and management of their expanding closed end accounts business. Before Brookfield, she spent nine years at Clarion Partners in a variety of asset management and portfolio management roles. Queen began her asset management career at MetLife in 1991, before departing in 1996 to pursue her MBA. She has nearly 30 years of industry experience.

Queen recently served as the board chair for Solar One, an organization which provides education and resources that create more sustainable and resilient urban environments. She was also a member of the Vestry of Trinity Church Wall Street serving on the investment committee overseeing a $5 billion endowment. She is active in numerous real estate organizations and is currently a ULI Global Governing Trustee and co-chair of ULI’s 2024 Spring Convention. Queen was the 2017 WX (Women Executives in Real Estate) Woman of the Year.

Scott Rechler is the chief executive officer and chairman of RXR, an innovative investor, developer, and place-maker committed to applying a customer and community-centered approach to all aspects of its business.

Before starting RXR, Rechler served as the chair and CEO of Reckson Associates, which he helped take public in 1995. RXR was founded in 2007, on the day after Rechler and his partners sold Reckson Associates for over $6 billion, generating a 700% return to Reckson’s investors. Since its founding, RXR has raised over $10 billion of private equity through a series of funds and separate account vehicles and built an over 500-person, fully-integrated team of professionals with expertise in operations, construction and development, investment management, and more.

In addition to his role at RXR, Rechler currently serves as vice chair on the Board of Directors for View, Inc., for which RXR recently led a $200 million investment. View, a manufacturer of dynamic glass, is a leader in smart building technologies that transform buildings to prioritize wellness while reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions. View's smart windows use artificial intelligence to adjust automatically in response to outdoor conditions, eliminating the need for blinds and increasing access to natural light. The company also develops leading software tools that digitize the built environment.

Rechler has held numerous leadership positions at various levels of government. In December 2021, Rechler was elected to a 3-year term on the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. From 2011 to 2016, Rechler served on the Board of Commissioners as vice chairman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He later served on the Board of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) from 2017 to 2019.

Rechler also serves as trustee and vice chair of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center, a member of the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) and the national organization, the Real Estate Roundtable (RER), chair of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, a member of the Board of Trustees at Northwell Health, the Hospital for Special Surgery, a member of the NYU Real Estate Institute Advisory Committee, and is on the Board of the Drum Major Institute.

Harris Rendelstein is an executive director in the CMBS Capital Markets group at J.P. Morgan. Rendelstein is a real estate capital markets professional with broad experience in private label and agency CMBS, as well as other related products. He focuses primarily on new issue principal securitization/origination on behalf of J.P. Morgan’s market leading platform for both conduit and large loan products. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan in 2015, Rendelstein was an associate at Ernst & Young with a concentration in fixed income transaction advisory.

Jonathan F.P. Rose’s business, public policy, teaching, research, writing, and not-for-profit work focuses on creating  more environmentally, socially and economically resilient cities.

In 1989, Rose founded Jonathan Rose Companies LLC, a multi-disciplinary real estate development and  investment firm, to address the challenges of declining ecologies and the poor distribution of opportunity through  the development of green affordable and mixed-income housing. Jonathan has led the firm’s vision, strategy and  growth, developing award winning new projects, investment funds and city plans that model solutions to address  the issues of community development, opportunity, inequality and the environment. The firm is one of the largest  acquirers of affordable and mixed income housing in the nation.

The firm’s innovative work has won awards from a wide range of notable organizations including: the Urban Land  Institute, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the American Planning Association, and the American Institute of Architects. Rose was selected as the winner of the 2021  ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development. He also advises global cities on planning, affordable housing, environmental, and social issues. He chairs the Bhutan Urban and Regional Planning Global Advisory Committee.

Rose’s book on how to create resilient cities, The Well-Tempered City: What Modern Science, Ancient  Civilizations and Human Nature Teach Us About the Future of Urban Life, was published by Harper Wave in 2016,  and won the 2017 PROSE Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work by a Trade Publisher. 

Rose is a trustee of Enterprise Community Partners and the Capital Institute. He and his wife Diana  Calthorpe Rose are the co-founders of the Garrison Institute and he serves as chair on its board. The Institute connects inner transformation with outer solutions to relieve suffering in the fields of trauma, education and the environment. Rose chaired the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Blue Ribbon Sustainability Commission, which developed  the nation’s first green transit plan, and was a commissioner on the NYS 2100 Commission, tasked with identifying  strategies for the long-term resilience of New York State’s infrastructure post-Hurricane Sandy.

As CEO and co-chairman of Rudin, William C. Rudin oversees the Rudin real estate portfolio, which includes 15 office towers spanning over 10 million square feet of space, 17 luxury apartment buildings, and developed The Greenwich Lane, a world-class residential project, all located in New York City.

Under Rudin’s leadership, Rudin has embraced the integration of technology and environmental design as a core principle of its development philosophy. Beyond his role in the real estate industry, he actively advocates for pro-business public policies on behalf of various business, civic, and trade organizations. He is recognized as one of the real estate industry's most influential voices and tirelessly represents the interests of groups such as the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), the Real Estate Roundtable, the Association for a Better New York (ABNY), the Partnership for New York City, and the Mayor's Fund's Board of Advisors.

Nadir Settles leads an international team across the US, Europe, and APAC in identifying and pursuing relevant real estate impact investments, while growing the overall sector. In addition, Settles is responsible for all aspects of New York office real estate investments and has portfolio management responsibilities for a New York City Property strategy.

His experience includes various positions from asset management, portfolio management, acquisitions, and product development. Prior to joining Nuveen Real Estate in 2012, Settles was involved in both asset management and acquisitions roles at Silverstein Properties and RLJ development Urban Lodging Trust (formally RLJ Development LLC).

Larry A. Silverstein is the chairman of Silverstein Properties, a Manhattan-based real estate development and investment firm that has developed, owned, and managed 40 million square feet of office, residential, hotel, and retail space. The firm currently has $10 billion worth of development activity underway, and has been recognized as one of the “Best Places to Work in New York City” by Crain’s New York Business for eight years in a row. In July 2001, Silverstein completed the largest real estate transaction in New York history when he signed a 99-year lease on the 10.6 million square feet World Trade Center for $3.25 billion, only to see it destroyed in terrorist attacks six weeks later on September 11, 2001. He has spent the last 22 years rebuilding the office component of the World Trade Center site, a $30 billion project that will consume the balance of his working life.

Harris Trifon joined Lord Abbett in 2021 and was named partner in 2023. His previous experience includes serving as co-head of mortgage and consumer credit at Western Asset Management; director of Fixed Income Research, global head of CRE Debt at Deutsche Bank; and director of structured finance at Standard & Poors. He has worked in the financial services industry since 2000. Trifon serves on the Executive Committee and Board of Governors for the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council and the University of Florida’s Bergstrom Center for Real Estate, and was voted on the Institutional Investor All-Star list for two years prior to moving to the buy-side. In addition, he serves as a mentor to NYU Stern’s Chen Institute Career Mentorship Program and he is a member of IMN’s (information management network) CRE Advisory Board.

Job Warshaw is managing director and head of special servicing at LNR Partners. His responsibilities encompass oversight of all CMB special servicing activities including loan asset management, defaulted loan workouts, lender consents, REO asset management, dispositions, surveillance, as well as due diligence support for LNR’s CMBS investment activities.

Warshaw joined LNR at its inception in 1992, and has been in his current position overseeing all special servicing activities since 2011. He has played a key role in all aspects of the formation and growth of LNR’s servicing platform and workout culture, including staffing, training, the development of internal systems and technology, and the formation of special servicing policies and procedures.

Miriam Wheeler is head of the Global Real Estate Financing Group in Investment Banking. She is a member of the Firmwide Capital Committee. Previously, Wheeler worked in fixed  income, currency, and commodities in mortgage sales. She joined Goldman Sachs in 2005 as an analyst and was named managing director in 2015 and partner in 2018. Wheeler serves on the board of the New York Restoration Project, an organization responsible for bringing community gardens, parks, and green space to New York. She also serves on the  Leadership Council for the East Harlem Tutorial Program.