6th National Symposium of Women in Real Estate Speaker Bios

Peggy DaSilva is the head of asset management for PIMCO Prime Real Estate LLC. Based in New York, she has more than 30 years of experience in real estate investment and in her role, she is responsible for actively managing the US portfolio of equity investments. Before joining the company, DaSilva held several senior positions including managing director at Canyon Partners Real Estate, managing director with the US Managed Accounts Group of CBRE Global Investors, and both senior vice president and managing director at the Rockefeller Group. In the past, DaSilva has been actively involved in women real estate organizations such as WX, and WLI, the Women’s Leadership Initiative at ULI.

Carolee Fink is a Principal of MSquared, a women-owned and managed social impact real estate platform, where she oversees operations across the country for the company’s investment management platform. She has spent decades at the highest levels of economic development. As a member of both the Bloomberg and de Blasio Administration, she oversaw major infrastructure and economic development projects, including the development of Brooklyn Bridge Park, Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District, NYU Applied Sciences Campus, and the Domino Sugar Refinery redevelopment.

As chief of staff to New York City Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, Fink was responsible for day-to-day operations of more than 25 reporting agencies with a combined budget of $30 billion. She ensured those agencies operated efficiently, effectively and in-line with the Administration’s efforts to build a new generation of mixed-income housing and grow New York City’s economy across the five boroughs. Under her management, Housing NY, the most comprehensive affordable housing program in the nation’s history, shattered all records, and long stalled initiatives to modernize the City’s commercial districts, like the rezoning of East Midtown and Garment Center were approved.

Linda Foggie is a global executive, board member, sustainability thought leader, and licensed architect with more than twenty years of experience leading from the forefront of workplace experience; sustainability, design, and construction; supplier diversity; and facilities management. Foggie is known for her ability to build strong, high-performing company cultures with high levels of belonging and engagement internationally. As the managing director and global head of real estate for Citi, she manages the operation of the global occupied corporate real estate portfolio and leads design and construction, facilities management, workplace experience, sustainability, data centers, and operational governance across 97 countries, leading a global team in the Americas, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Asia Pacific. She drives the strategic vision for workplace experience, integrating people and places by providing a holistic connectedness to develop and attract top, diverse talent across multiple cultures and countries.

Laurie Golub is responsible for oversight of ongoing business operations at Affinius Capital.  Prior to joining Affinius Capital (previously known as Square Mile), Golub held leadership positions with HFZ Capital Group, Africa-Israel USA, and Forest City Ratner Companies. Prior to that, she was an attorney in private practice for more than a decade, where she represented clients on a broad range of real estate and corporate transactions. Golub has over 30 years of extensive experience in the industry with respect to real estate finance and capital markets, investments, development and construction, and ownership and operation of mixed-use properties. She earned a JD from New York University School of Law and a BS from Boston University.

Laurie Grasso is partner and co-chair of global real estate at Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP. She takes a client-focused approach to her real estate practice, often acting as in-house counsel for her clients and becoming a trusted member of their businesses. She is known as an accomplished dealmaker, valued for her ability to adeptly and efficiently handle any type of real estate deal and  often recognized by publications for her work, some of which include Crain’s, Real Estate Forum, Real Estate Weekly, Bisnow, Commercial Observer and the New York Real Estate Journal. She iss also involved in a number of charitable organizations focusing on increasing diversity in real estate. She serves on the Advisory Board and spearheads the firm’s partnership with Project Destined. Additionally, she serves as co-chair for Rebuilding New York’s “She Builds” program, organizing an annual renovation day, rehabilitating a NYC community center in need.

Sandy Jacobson is the managing partner of Allen Matkins’ New York office, and co-chairs the New York Real Estate practice group. She joined the firm’s Orange County, California office in 1997 and recently relocated to New York City to spearhead the opening of the firm’s first location on the east coast.vJacobson has extensive experience in handling complex real estate transactions throughout the United States, and has assisted her clients in the development, redevelopment, leasing, ground leasing, and sale of more than one million square feet of office, industrial, multifamily, and retail properties.

She has been instrumental in the growth of the industrial portfolios of a number of national institutional clients in the last several years. She is a member of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, involved in the Women’s Leadership Initiative at Urban Land Institute (ULI), serves on the firm’s management and diversity committees, and has chaired and served on the committees of a wide variety of charitable organizations. 

Leleah James is vice president of community engagement at Related Affordable. She is responsible for cultivating and sustaining relationships and supporting real estate projects, programs, and objectives that communities identify as priorities. James joined Related in 2019 to manage the Related Affordable Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) organization committed to enriching the lives of affordable housing residents and breaking the generational cycle of poverty. As executive director, James was responsible for spearheading the Foundation's national philanthropic strategy by funding nonprofits focused on education, food security, health and wellness, and workforce development.

James executed grant strategy, implemented programmatic services for affordable housing residents, and worked cross-functionally with stakeholders to maximize community impact. James was a founding council member of Related’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) Task Force, and is currently a member of Related’s DE&I Advisory Group. She is a 2023 Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) fellow, a leadership program focused on improving and promoting diversity within the real estate industry.

With Brookfield Properties and its predecessor, Olympia & York, Sabrina Kanner has overseen development, design, and construction in the Northeast US for over 40 years. She joined  the construction division of Olympia & York in 1982 and was appointed to run Olympia and York’s construction company in 1986. In her tenure with the company. Kanner played a key role in the construction, design, and development or redevelopment of  over 40 million square feet of signature Brookfield projects including World Financial  Center, Brookfield Place, 300 Madison Avenue, Halley Rise, the restoration/renovation of the Winter Garden at World Financial Center after 9/11, and Manhattan West. She is a member of WX and the National Academy of Construction, and sits on the Boards of  Directors of the New York Building Congress, the Salvadori Center, the Regional Plan Association, Urban Green Council, the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, and the Opus Group.

Anita Laljit Lamb is a senior originator in the Real Estate Financing Group at Goldman Sachs, focusing on large, complex, loan originations and syndications.  She is responsible for underwriting, loan structuring, negotiations, and execution.

Anita started her career at GS and joined REFG in 2014.  Prior to 2014, Anita worked in the Credit Risk Management and Advisory group performing various roles.

Anita graduated summa cum laude with a BBA in finance from Hofstra University.

As a partner in Fried Frank’s Real Estate Department, Anita Laremont advises clients on various land use, zoning, and development matters. She has worked with numerous large-scale economic development and land-use projects in New York City and throughout the state. She was previously the chair of the New York City Planning Commission and director of the Department of City Planning, having also served as its general counsel and executive director. At City Planning, Laremont was a principal architect of New York City’s Mandatory Affordable Housing policy, and guided a number of significant neighborhood rezonings, including East New York, Greater East Midtown and Soho Noho. She also served for many years as general counsel of Empire State Development Corporation.

Lesley Lisser is a Senior Director of Investment Management at Invesco Real Estate. As the Northeast Regional Head of IRE’s national multi-family platform, Lisser oversees approximately 6,500 units from DC to Boston ranging from high-end luxury to affordable housing in New York City. She joined Invesco Real Estate in 2012. Prior to this appointment in July 2016, she ran an office, industrial, multi-family and retail portfolio in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. She held asset management positions at Lehman Brothers Holdings LLC, Wafra Investment Advisory Group, Brookfield Opportunity Fund, and Emmes Asset Management.

Lisser is a LEED AP and holds a BOMA RPA designation. She is a board member of the Garment Center BID and co-chair of ULI New York’s Housing Council.   She is a member of WX (New York Women Executives in Real Estate), WAM (Woman in Asset Management), and IWN (Invesco Women’s Network). 

Cynthia Maasry is a Managing Director at Trinity Church Wall Street. She joined Trinity’s investment team in 2017 as part of the first internal investment office to oversee Trinity’s $7bn endowment. Cynthia leads the Mission Investing platform. Prior to joining Trinity Church Wall Street, Cynthia worked for Goldman Sachs in real estate investment in London and the equities division in New York. Cynthia holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Stanford University.

Jillian Mariutti is a senior director on JLL’s Debt and Equity Financing team in New York and has more than 15 years of experience in the commercial real estate industry.  She arranges and structures real estate capital on an exclusive basis for the nation’s premier owners, investors, and developers.

Previously Mariutti was a director at Mission Capital on the debt and equity finance desk. Prior to Mission, she worked at JCRA Financial LLC as the head of real estate, North America and was responsible for providing foreign exchange and interest rate risk management services to real estate clients. Mariutti joined JCRA from Wells Fargo’s interest rate derivatives desk in New York where she was a vice president and marketed and structured interest rate management solutions for Public REITS, Multi Family and Hospitality Finance clients.

Mariutti  graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BS in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania. 

As Senior Director of the Gateway Program at Amtrak, Ms. Messick provides leadership in planning and program management of the Gateway Program, a comprehensive rail investment plan to rebuild and expand the Northeast Corridor between Newark, New Jersey, and New York City, including a new Hudson River Tunnel and the expansion of Penn Station New York. Since joining Amtrak in 2012, she has helped develop the Gateway Program from concept planning to its current stage of constructing the first major projects, with other projects in design. A regional planner by training, Ms. Messick was previously director of America 2050, Regional Plan Association’s national infrastructure planning and policy program, which provided leadership on a broad range of transportation, sustainability, and economic-development issues impacting America’s growth in the 21st century. Messick received a Master of City and Regional Planning from Rutgers University and a B.A. from Vassar College and has taught urban and regional planning at Pratt Institute and the New School. She is a certified Project Management Professional and the mother of two girls.

Carly Miller is a managing director at PGIM Real Estate and the head of their US Asset Management team. Based in Newark, New Jersey, Miller is responsible for the management of the company’s investments in the United States, providing strategic and day-to-day oversight to over 80 asset managers.

Prior to joining PGIM Real Estate in 2007, Miller was vice president, acquisitions, for the Milestone Group in New York, and an investment sales broker with a focus on New York City office buildings at Savills Studley, CBRE and JLL. She is a member of ICSC, ULI, and is on the board of directors of WX New York Executive Women in Real Estate. 

Joanne Minieri is a senior executive vice president of RXR and senior managing director of  Transit-Oriented Development for the New York Metro Region. Minieri jointed RXR in 2016 as  an executive vice president and chief operating officer of RXR Development & Construction  Services and brings a wealth of experience from both private and public sectors in the management  and operations of development and construction.

From 2012 through mid-2016, Minieri served as the deputy county executive and  commissioner for Suffolk County Economic Development and Planning, and was responsible for  attracting and retaining business, promoting new industries, fostering transit-oriented development,  managing land use, preserving open space and expanding affordable housing options for one of the  largest counties in the United States. In her first public sector role, Minieri leveraged her  private sector experience to improve Suffolk County’s business climate, build consensus and  commitment for development projects to effectuate the economic developments initiatives  necessary to retain and create jobs in the region.

Previously, Minieri served as president and chief operating officer of Forest City Ratner  Companies, one of the largest developers in the New York metropolitan area. During her tenure, Minieri was responsible for implementing the company’s business plan, and directed the  Executive Management team, which devised the company’s long-term strategy and evaluated  business development opportunities. Under her management, the company diversified its portfolio  with the development of 24 retail centers, ten office buildings, two hotels, two residential projects,  the acquisition of the NBA franchise and the development of a new state-of-the-art sports and  entertainment venue, the Barclays Center, which opened in 2012. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Minieri is a CPA and holds a Bachelor of Business  Administration degree from Hofstra University.

Laura Rapaport is the founder and CEO of North Bridge, a national women-owned C-PACE lender and servicer that focuses on institutional borrowers and lenders for C-PACE financing. Prior to founding North Bridge, Rapaport was a managing director at L&L Holding Company, an owner-operator and developer in New York City. She was a key member of the leadership team for almost a decade, including roles running capital raising and as development manager of 425 Park Avenue. Rapaport’s previous experience was as a director in the New York development group of Tishman Speyer.

She started her career at Lehman Brothers in their Global Real Estate Group in London. She is on the board of PACENation, member and former board Member of WX, cofounder of Penn Women in Real Estate, ULI District and National Council member, C-PACE Alliance member, and was named by Crain’s Magazine as one of New York’s 2017 “40 Under 40” Rising Stars.

Amanda Ryzowy joined L+M Fund Management (LMFM) in 2013. Ryzowy’s responsibilities include sourcing and structuring the acquisition and disposition of LMFM assets along with developing LMFM’s growing investment strategies. Since its inception in 2010, LMFM has acquired over 20,000 multi-family units with a total capitalization of over $4 billion. Prior to joining LMFM, Ryzowy began her career in the Commodity Finance Group within JP Morgan’s investment bank in New York City, structuring and funding the development of wind farms as well as oil and natural gas fields. Ryzowy serves on Rebuilding Together’s “She Builds” committee, organizing community revitalization projects to support under-resourced women and their families. She is from New York City and graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in Physics.

Neha Santiago is head of real estate private credit for Cerberus. Prior to joining Cerberus in 2020, Santiago spent eight years at Goldman Sachs, where she was a managing director in the real estate principal investment area, investing both in private equity and debt. While at Goldman Sachs, she oversaw the firm’s investment strategy in the Midwest, Texas, and South Florida as well as the hospitality sector. Santiago began her 15-year real estate investing career as a real estate banking analyst at Merrill Lynch and held principal investing positions at Lehman Brothers, Scout Real Estate Capital, and H/2 Capital.

She graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University and received an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Chairman and Head of NYC Capital Markets for global real estate services firm CBRE, Ms. Stacom dominates the world’s most competitive landscape. In her 40+ year career Ms. Stacom has completed well over $145 billion in sales, financing, joint venture, leasehold, and development transactions. The $5.4 billion sale of Peter Cooper Stuyvesant Town and the $2.8 billion sale of GM Building stand as the largest of their kind in history.

Ms. Stacom has won the industry’s highest prizes and praise. Five-time recipient of REBNY’s Most Ingenious Deal of the Year award including for 330 Madison Avenue, Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, Two Gotham Center Condominium in Long Island City, 250 East 57^th Street, and the GM/Legacy Portfolio – Honoring the Family Name.

Ms. Stacom is devoted to her industry leadership. A Governor of the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), Ms. Stacom is Co-Chair of the Diversity Committee, where she shines a spotlight on the importance of increasing diversity within the industry. As a Board Member for New York University’s Schack Institute she co-organizes the annual Women in Real Estate conference, the industry’s most prestigious professional conference for women in commercial real estate. On the Board and Executive Committee of Phipps Houses, she works to preserve and develop much needed quality affordable housing.

With focuses on the wider New York City community, she serves as Co-Chair of the Board of NYRP. Through NYRP, greenspace, food security, composting and water management are improved for local communities across the boroughs. In addition to leading the campaign to plant new trees in the City’s parks, she and her family adopted a community garden in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Helena Williams, CEO of JFK Millennium Partners, is a seasoned operations and infrastructure professional with long-standing experience successfully leading multi-faceted strategic initiatives in essential service sectors such as transportation and public safety across both public and private sectors. As the senior executive responsible for the JFK Terminal 6 redevelopment, Williams currently oversees project delivery, operational performance and community relations, from construction phases to operations commencement in 2026. Prior to joining JMP, Williams served as chief deputy county executive for Nassau County, overseeing the county’s operating budget of $3.1 billion, some 7,000 employees, and delivering significant initiatives for the county’s 1.3 million residents. Williams previously held a variety of leadership roles, including president of Long Island Railroad, executive director of MTA, and president of Long Island Bus, and Senior Advisor to MTA’s Chief Financial Officer.