Andrea Balkan is a managing partner in Brookfield’s Real Estate Group, responsible for the overall management of Brookfield’s real estate finance funds. She has held several senior management positions across the organization.

Prior to joining Brookfield in 2002, she was a director at Merrill Lynch in New York, in the investment banking and debt capital markets groups, where she was responsible for conduit and large loan origination business, and before that, a managing director at Chase Manhattan Bank.

Balkan holds a bachelor of arts degree from Wesleyan University and completed Chemical Bank’s credit training program.

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 vice chairman 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 NYU SPS 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 NYU SPS Schack Institute Conference on Capital Markets in Real Estate.

Lisa Bozzelli is the senior director on the Fannie Mae Multifamily Capital Markets Trading Desk. She manages the trading desk and is responsible for all primary and secondary trading, and marketing of Fannie Mae’s Delegated Underwriting and Servicing (DUS) MBS as well as the resecuritization of DUS MBS portfolio assets into Agency CMBS deals through the Fannie Mae Guaranteed Multifamily Structures (GeMSTM) program each month. Since program inception, Fannie Mae has structured over $100 billion in GeMS securities, including $13 billion in Green GeMS and $315 million in Social GeMS. Bozzelli serves as the lead Capital Markets representative for the Fannie Mae Multifamily Green Financing Business. This business represents a market-leading effort to integrate water and energy efficiency savings into commercial real estate financing and has originated $98 billion in Green MBS.

Bozzelli holds a BS from the US Naval Academy and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.  

Leland Bunch joined Bank of America in late 2007 and currently oversees CMBS structuring, distribution, and securitization. He also has been responsible for $20.0bn+ of large loan CMBS 2.0/3.0 originations and is the GSE relationship manager for Agency CMBS. Prior to joining the bank, Bunch was the head of European CMBS at UBS Investment Bank. He started his Wall Street career with JPMorgan in New York and finished in London overseeing CMBS capital markets.

Sam Chandan is the Larry & Klara Silverstein Chair and Academic Dean of NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate, one of the world’s largest centers of urban and real estate education and applied research. He is also founder of Chandan Economics, an economic advisory and data science firm serving the institutional real estate industry, editor of Urban Epidemiology, a contributor to Forbes, and host of the Urban Lab on Apple Podcasts. Dean Chandan is chair of the Real Estate Pride Council, an association of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender professionals in the global commercial real estate industry.

Dean Chandan is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS), the Royal Society for Public Health (FRSPH), and the Real Estate Research Institute (RERI), and an Associate Member of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). His interdisciplinary research explores the urban epidemiology of microbial diseases and the preparedness of global cities and other systemically important urban areas in managing novel public health threats.

Dean Chandan’s commentary on commercial and residential real estate markets and the broader economy has been featured regularly in national and global press, including the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, CNBC, and Bloomberg. Among his recent publications, he was the lead investigator for Regulatory Design and Real Outcomes, a major study on the regulation of commercial real estate lending commissioned by the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council (CREFC).

Dean Chandan’s real estate industry-specific research focusses on commercial real estate capital markets and risk analytics, as well as long term changes in space use patterns. He presents regular updates on commercial real estate lending trends to US and global regulators, including the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). He holds an honorary appointment as the Economist Laureate of the Real Estate Lenders Association and has served on the real estate advisory council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

Dean Chandan received his PhD in Applied Economics from the Wharton School and was a Doctoral Scholar in the Economics Department at Princeton University. In addition to his doctorate, he holds graduate degrees in economics and engineering and an undergraduate degree in economics, finance, and public policy. He served previously on the faculties of the Wharton School and Dartmouth College. Prior to founding Chandan Economics, Dean Chandan was Global Chief Economist and Executive Vice President at Real Capital Analytics (RCA). During his tenure as Chief Economist and Senior Vice President at Reis, he was part of the executive team that took the company public.

Dean Chandan resides between New York City, Montréal, and Upstate New York, where he is a volunteer firefighter and a member of his town’s emergency medical services corps.

For more information, please visit samchandan.com

Marty Burger is chief executive officer of Silverstein Properties. He leads the company’s day to day activities, and focuses on its acquisition, development, financing, and fund management efforts in the United States and abroad. He is a trustee and a governor of the Urban Land Institute, a board member of SparkYouth, the Partnership for NY, and the Battery Conservancy, and an advisory board member of the Zell/Lurie RE Center at Wharton, the Center for RE and Finance at Cornell University, the NYU School of Professional Studies Schack Institute of Real Estate, National Jewish Health, and the Lincoln Center RE and Construction Council. Burger received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Sairah Burki is managing director, regulatory affairs at CREFC, focusing on regulatory issues with a significant impact on the commercial and multifamily real estate finance industry. She also leads CREFC’s Sustainability Initiative.

Prior to joining CREFC, Burki was a managing director and head of policy at the Structured Finance Association (SFA). She built SFA’s asset-backed policy function, responding to new policy initiatives and regulatory requirements across a wide range of topics in the structured finance industry.

Before joining SFA, Burki was a director on Capital One’s securitization team, working on deal execution and feasibility studies across new trust structures. During the financial crisis, as director of treasury policy, she pivoted from a securitization role to one focused on developing Capital One’s response to Dodd-Frank and Basel proposals.

Burki graduated cum laude from Princeton University with a BA in Public Policy and earned an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Jeffrey F. DiModica, CFA, has been the president of Starwood Property Trust 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 & Serving, which have a collective $19 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. He began his career in the Merchant and Investment Banking Group of the Commercial Real Estate Department at Chemical Bank from 1989 to 1991.

DiModica earned a BS/BA degree with distinction and a concentration in finance from Boston University in 1989, an MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College in 1993, and received his Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1995. He 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. DiModica also was the founding president of www.Mitoaction.org, a support, education, and advocacy group for families affected by Mitochondrial Disease.

He was honored to be ranked in Commercial Observer’s “The 50 Most Important Figures of Commercial Real Estate Finance” list for the last seven years, and ranked 8th in the most recent 2021 publication.

Jeffrey F. Fastov, senior managing director and co-portfolio manager - credit strategies. He is responsible for establishing, overseeing, and implementing Square Mile’s strategic direction with respect to all credit initiatives. Prior to joining Square Mile in 2013, Fastov was co-head of Credit Suisse’s Real Estate Finance and Securitization Group. Prior to Credit Suisse, he founded Oasis Real Estate Partners, a capital markets advisor to foreign and domestic financial institutions, private equity funds, and other significant real estate credit market participants. From 1992 to 2009, Fastov was with Goldman Sachs, where he ultimately served as co-head of the commercial real estate lending business. He started his career at Moody’s Investors Service, where he established and led the commercial real estate ratings group from 1983 to 1992. Fastov earned a BA from the University of Rochester and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Boyd W. Fellows is a founder and one of the four managing partners of ACORE Capital, overseeing capital market activities, investor relations and marketing. He has over 35 years of experience in the commercial real estate finance industry and capital markets: President and member of the board of directors of Starwood Property Trust; Co-founder of Countrywide Financial Corporation’s CRE finance business; Founding Partner of Coastal Capital Partners; Partner at Thomas Weisel Partners and CEO of Scudder Weisel Capital; Co-CEO of Nomura’s CRE finance division; and Co-head of the non- agency mortgage trading desk at Morgan Stanley.

Fellows holds a BSBA degree in Economics from the University of Missouri and an MBA from the University of Oregon.

Marc Holliday has served as the CEO since 2004 and became the chairman of the board as of January 2019. He has been with the company since 1998, when he joined as chief investment officer. Holliday is frequently cited and interviewed by the nation’s leading media outlets regarding the commercial real estate marketplace and the future of New York City. In the last year, Holliday has led SL Green through the historic opening of East Midtown’s skyline-defining tower One Vanderbilt, closed on a record-setting $3 billion refinancing of the now iconic building, signed nearly 1 million square feet of office leasing, and - importantly - created a non- profit foundation in partnership with Chef Daniel Boulud responding to the impacts of COVID- 19 and the City’s growing food crisis, Food1st Foundation. With a dual mission of reopening restaurant kitchens across New York City and feeding frontline workers and New Yorkers in need, Food1st has prepared, packaged and delivered more than 700,000 meals across New York City, reopened dozens of restaurants and re-employed hundreds of restaurant workers. A trustee and emeritus benefactor of Columbia University and a long-time supporter of Columbia’s real estate development program, he established the Holliday Professorship of Real Estate Development in 2008.

Holliday was recently honored by the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in 2017, receiving the Intrepid Salute Award in honor of his outstanding business and philanthropic achievements and his commitment to supporting programs for active service men and women and veterans.

National Jewish Health in 2011 honored him with the Humanitarian Award and raised a record- breaking $3 million for the organization from members of New York City’s real estate and construction industries. Additionally, he has served on the board of the New York Racing Association since 2014 and was appointed to chair the Equine Safety Committee in 2015. Holliday received a BS degree in business and finance from Lehigh University and an MS degree in real estate development from Columbia University.

Timothy Johnson is the global head of Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies Originations, based in New York. He 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, he was a vice president in the Lehman Brothers Global Commercial Real Estate Group where he worked from 2002-2008. Johnson earned a BA in Mathematics from the College of the Holy Cross where he graduated cum laude.

Lainie Kaye is a managing director of Deutsche Bank and is the head of its US Commercial Real Estate Securitization Group. Since joining Deutsche Bank in 2001, she has completed several hundred billion of securitized transactions for Deutsche Bank’s own account, as well as for third-party clients. In addition, at Deutsche Bank, she works on the origination of large structured transactions, as well as the restructuring, workout and resolution of distressed and non-performing assets. Her clients include banks, opportunity funds, specialty finance companies and real estate developers. Kaye has over 30 years of experience in real estate transaction management, securitization, structuring and negotiating real estate debt and equity investments as well as loan restructuring and workouts. She joined Deutsche Bank from Prudential Securities and Nomura Capital, where she worked on loan origination, construction lending and securitization. Prior to this, she was a real estate attorney for Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP and Baker & McKenzie.

Kaye earned a BS in Communication Studies from Northwestern University in 1987, she holds a one-year course degree from the London School of Economics and a JD from Hofstra University School of Law.  Until recently, she served on the board of directors of Dorot for over 12 years. Dorot is a nonprofit whose mission it is to improve the quality of life for the elderly in the New York and tri state area. Kaye also is currently the co-chair of the NULC New York Regional Board. She lives in New York City with her husband and two boys.

New York City Economic Development Corporation is a mission-driven, nonprofit organization that works with and for communities across New York City to strengthen neighborhoods and create good jobs.

Cecilia Kushner is the executive vice president for the Planning Division at NYCEDC, where she leads large multidisciplinary teams to deliver on some of the most ambitious and complex urban planning, development, and transportation projects in New York City. As part of her role, Kushner oversees NYC Ferry, NYC’s five-borough ferry transit system, as well as $1 billion of active projects geared towards delivering infrastructure and amenities, and improving quality of life for New Yorkers across the five boroughs. With 15 years of experience in urban planning, development, and resiliency in New York City, London, and Paris, she has dedicated her career to executing significant initiatives that seek to improve global cities.

Kushner received her bachelor’s degree from La Sorbonne and holds a Master’s in Historic Preservation from The Bartlett School of Planning at University College London, and a Master’s in City Planning from Hunter College, where she has taught Planning as an adjunct.

She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.

Richard J. Mack co-founded Mack Real Estate Group in 2013 and Mack Real Estate Credit Strategies, its affiliated credit business, in 2014. He is the chief executive officer of both businesses. Previously, Mack was the chief executive officer, North America of AREA Property Partners, which was founded in 1993 as Apollo Real Estate Advisors. He serves on the Wharton School of Business board of advisors and co- created a course there on Real Estate Disruption. Mack serves on the board of trustees of the Randall’s Island Sports Foundation, the Child Mind Institute, Northwell Health, Robin Hood Foundation’s Housing & Homelessness Committee, and is chairman of the board of the Met Council, which serves impoverished New Yorkers. He holds a BS from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a JD from Columbia University.

Mitchell L. Moss, Henry Hart Rice Professor of Urban Policy and Planning, and director of the Rudin Center for Transportation, has been described as a “New Yorkologist” by The New York Times. In 2019, Professor Moss was appointed by Mayor de Blasio to serve on the mayor's expert panel on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway Project. In 2017, he was appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo to serve on the "FIX NYC" advisory group to identify ways to raise revenue for mass transit and to reduce congestion.

Professor Moss has been on the faculty of New York University since 1973, and is also an affiliated professor of civil and urban engineering in NYU's Tandon School of Engineering. He served as an adviser to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg during his first campaign for mayor in 2001. From 1988 to 2003 he was director of NYU’s Taub Urban Research Center and from 1983 to 2004 he was deputy to the chairman of the Governor’s Council on Fiscal and Economic Priorities. Moss is currently a member of the steering committee of the Association for a Better New York.

Professor Moss has directed research projects for the National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US Department of Homeland Security, and has been a consultant to leading corporations and government agencies. He has testified before the United States House of Representatives’ Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and has been an expert witness in litigation before the United States District Court, Southern District of New York. Moss has been a guest lecturer at the Fire Department of New York's Advanced Management Institute and has also lectured to US Army officers for the Institute for Defense and Business. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Post, The New York Observer and Politico.com, as well as in leading scholarly journals.

Professor Moss was named an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects, New York Chapter in 2018.

Andrea Olshan serves as president and chief executive officer of Seritage Growth Properties. She previously served as chief executive officer of Olshan Properties from 2012 to 2021. She is chairperson of Olshan Properties’ board of directors.

In addition to her real estate career, Olshan is actively involved in numerous civic and social service organizations. She is a trustee of the Horace Mann School, is a vice chair of the Board of Directors of the 92Y, serves as class co-chair for the Harvard College Fund and co-founded the Harvard College Alumnae Engagement Initiative, as well as acting as president of the Graduate Board of the Hasty Pudding Club - Institute of 1770.

Olshan graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard and earned her MBA from Columbia Business School.

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 Commercial Real Estate Finance Council (CREFC), was the 2010/2011 president and formerly a member of CREFC’s Board of Governors for over nine years. She previously served on the editorial board of CREFC’s CRE Finance World. Pendergast has been a top-ranked research analyst in the highly competitive Institutional Investor All-American Fixed-Income Research Team survey in the CMBS category. She has published several articles and reports on various aspects of the CMBS markets that appear in industry handbooks and academic journals, and is often quoted in the financial press on commercial real estate debt- related issues.

Prior to CREFC, Lisa Pendergast was with Jefferies, the principal operating subsidiary of Jefferies Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Leucadia National Corporation (NYSE: LUK), in July 2009 as a managing director and head of CMBS Strategy and Risk in the Fixed Income Division’s MBS/ABS/CMBS Group. In her current role, Pendergast provides analysis and commentary on commercial real estate credit fundamentals and relative value within the private-label and agency CMBS and structured-product markets. She has more than 25 years of industry experience in the structured-finance markets.

Before joining Jefferies, Pendergast was a managing director in the Fixed-Income Strategies Group at the Royal Bank of Scotland, where she worked for eight years. Early on in her career, she focused on the residential MBS marketplace as a research analyst at Prudential Securities, authoring reports on various securitization structures and mortgage-related bond analyses, such as option-adjusted spreads.

Jonathan Pollack is the global head of the Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies and is based in New York. Since joining Blackstone in 2015, he has been responsible for overseeing real estate debt investment strategy. He also is a member of the firm’s real estate investment committee, and serves on the board of Blackstone Mortgage Trust.

Prior to joining Blackstone, Pollack was a managing director and global head of commercial real estate, as well as head of risk for structured finance, at Deutsche Bank. He joined Deutsche Bank in 1999 from Nomura Group.

Pollack received a BA in Economics from Northwestern University. He currently serves on the board of trustees of the East Harlem Tutorial Program.

Scott Rechler is the chief executive officer and chairman of RXR, one of the largest owners, managers, and developers of real estate and infrastructure in the New York metropolitan region.

As an appointee of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, 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 at the request of Governor Cuomo on the board of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority from 2017 to 2019.

In addition to his role at RXR, Rechler currently serves as chair of the Regional Plan Association, trustee and vice chair of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, member of the Real Estate Board of New York, co-chair of The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, and a member of the NYU Real Estate Institute Advisory Committee. In addition, he is co-chair on the board for the Drum Major Institute and Convene.

Craig Robinson is the chief growth officer for Industrious, the leading workplace provider for companies of all sizes and stages. He most recently built and led Powered By We, a hyper-growth business unit at WeWork, providing technology, development, and management services to real estate owners and tenants. Previously he was the CEO of Global Corporate Services at Newmark Knight Frank (NASDAQ: NMRK), where he led all sales, operations and platform investments for their corporate real estate outsourcing business. Prior to Newmark, he was president of Colliers International Group (NASDAQ: CIGI), US Region, where he was responsible for $1B+ in annual revenue, 5,600 real estate professionals, and 150 offices. Robinson serves on the corporate boards of Roofstock, a leading residential real estate investment marketplace, and Fyllo, a regulatory compliance and data marketplace technology company. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a BS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Stephen M. Ross is the chairman and founder of Related Companies, a global real estate and lifestyle company defined by innovation in all aspects of property development, design, service, and wellness. The company has over $50 billion in assets owned or under development including the neighborhood-defining Hudson Yards, and owns Equinox® Fitness Clubs, Equinox Hotels, and SoulCycle, further expanding the company's capabilities into the hospitality, health, and fitness arena.

Ross is the owner of the Miami Dolphins, a franchise that has become one of the most fan-friendly under his leadership. He also is chairman and co-founder of RSE Ventures, a multinational technology, sports, and entertainment venture firm. RSE has invested in and incubated a number of diverse businesses and has also created and launched the International Champions Cup, a global pre-season soccer tournament.

Ross graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Business Administration, from Wayne State University Law School with a Juris Doctor, and from New York University School of Law with a Master of Laws in Taxation.

Jason S. Rozes, a partner in Dechert's global finance practice, focuses his practice in the areas of commercial real estate finance and commercial mortgage securitization. He leads Dechert’s commercial real estate lending team and serves as a leader of the firmwide Diversity and Inclusion Program. Rozes represents US and foreign investment banks, commercial banks, institutional lenders, REITs, and private equity investors in a variety of real estate finance transactions, including large loan CMBS and balance sheet financings; permanent and bridge loan originations; mezzanine and other subordinate debt financings; construction loans; loan participations, syndications and other co-lender arrangements; and workouts and restructurings.

Rozes has been recognized in The Legal 500 US for his work in real estate finance law and has been consistently ranked in this area since 2012. He has been described by clients as "knowledgeable and experienced," and that his "perseverance and dedication are commendable."

Rozes completed Harvard Law School's Executive Education program, “Emerging Leaders in Law Firms,” which is designed for experienced partners taking on law firm management roles. He is a frequent speaker and author on matters relating to real estate finance and an active member of the CRE Finance Council (CREFC) and the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). In addition, Rozes is a contributor to Dechert's finance and real estate blog, Crunched Credit, and a member of the Climate Reality Project’ s Leadership Corps where he writes about the intersection of climate change and commercial real estate finance. He also regularly speaks on the effects of climate changes and ESG on the commercial real estate finance industry. He was the keynote speaker at the CREFC June 2021 Conference, in addition to his panel discussing the ESG objectives in CRE, where he analyzed the science driving climate change and discuss the reality of its many physical impacts on our planet.

Michael Ruder concentrates his capital markets practice on commercial mortgage- backed securities (CMBS) transactions and other securitizations. He frequently represents issuers and underwriters in connection with agency and private label CMBS securitizations, including single-asset / single-borrower (SASB) transactions. He has securitized CMBS loans secured by a variety of property types, including multifamily, office, retail, hospitality, industrial, and assisted living. He has experience with securitizations involving hybrid ARM loans, mezzanine loans, junior liens, tax exempt loans, participation interests, future funding, and SOFR loans.

Ruder also advises securitization clients on sustainable finance matters, including green bonds, social bonds, frameworks and second party opinions. He served as issuer’s counsel on one of the largest green CMBS issuances to date. Ruder’s trade association committee work includes work with CREFC’s Sustainability Initiative and the SFA’s ESG and Sustainable Finance Initiative.

Ruder is the co-author of "Challenges in standardisation of green bonds: The US perspective,"which was published in the International Financial Law Review. He also hosted a podcast discussing ESG factors related to US CMBS.

Ruder earned his JD, cum laude, from Northwestern University School of Law.

As CEO & co-Chairman of Rudin Management Company, William C. Rudin oversees the Rudin real estate portfolio of 16 office towers comprising more than 10 million square feet of Class A space, 17 luxury apartment buildings, and a world-class residential development project, all in New York City (www.rudin.com). The integration of technology and environmental design is a hallmark of the Rudin’s development philosophy. Unique examples of this integration include Dock 72 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a new 675,000 square-foot commercial building of innovative and collaborative work spaces (www.Dock72.com); The Greenwich Lane, the former St. Vincent’s hospital site that is presently being adaptively reused into a new, state-of-the-art, mixed-use development that will include residential, retail, community facilities, healthcare, open space and educational facilities (www.thegreenwichlane.com); and 130 W. 12th St., a classic prewar 42-unit condominium, which was renovated in 2011-2012 to LEED Gold standard and is the winner of the Global Green’s 13th Annual Sustainable Green Building Design Award; and is one of the city’s first residential LEED Neighborhood Developments. The Rudin portfolio also includes commercial buildings: The Thomson Reuters building at 3 Times Square, 55 Broad Street (www.55broadst.com), and 32 Sixth Avenue (www.32sixthave.com), which houses global media, education, and communications and tech firms such as iHeartMedia, New York University, Verizon, T-Mobile, Tribeca Film Institute, and Dentsu Holdings USA.

On behalf of business, civic and trade organizations, Rudin is one of the real estate industry’s strongest and most influential voices advancing pro-business public policy. He works tirelessly in Washington, DC; Albany; and City Hall on behalf of groups including the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), the Real Estate Roundtable, the Association for a Better New York (ABNY), and the Partnership for New York City. His focus is promoting policies that will continue diversifying the City’s economy in order to generate jobs and bring renewed vitality to New York City’s businesses and its commercial and residential real estate marketplace.

Rudin is the founding chairman and current board member of the Battery Conservancy and is a former chairman and current board member of ABNY, REBNY, and RER. He is a board member of the Partnership for New York City, the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York University, and the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation. He is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations, The Economic Club of New York, and The New York City Marathon Committee. Rudin and his wife, Ophelia, reside in New York City along with their daughter Samantha and her husband, David, and their son Michael and his wife, Sabrina. They are also proud grandparents of three. He and his family proudly continue the Rudin tradition of helping to make New York City a better place to live, work and visit.

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 20 years rebuilding the office component of the World Trade Center site, a $30 billion project that will consume the balance of his working life.

James H. Simmons III is a veteran investment professional with 20 years of experience managing innovative private real estate funds for two of the industry’s most prominent asset managers, Ares Management and AREA Property Partners/Apollo Real Estate Advisors, in addition to previous public sector experience leading the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation. Simmons now serves as CEO and managing partner of Asland Capital Partners, an institutional investment management platform he founded in January 2019, serving as head of the investment committee with responsibility for the strategic direction and investment strategy of the firm.

Tom Vecchione is a principal at Vocon with more than 30 years of experience in architecture, real estate planning, and strategic design. He has worked with top corporations, building owners, and developers to reposition their properties and align the stakeholder’s business aspirations to the demands of a new generation of tenants. He has designed for a range of industry sectors globally, including financial headquarters in Cairo; innovation hubs in San Francisco; pharmaceutical campuses in Zurich; technology centers in London; creative workplaces in Shanghai; and office towers in Boston, NYC, Tokyo, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Vecchione is a member of the board of directors of The Center for an Urban Future, The New York City Landmarks Preservation Foundation, and on the advisory board at The Cornell Baker Program in Real Estate and the NYU School of Professional Studies Schack Institute of Real Estate. He also is currently a visiting lecturer at Cornell, teaching “Creating the Built Environment.”

Brian Ward is the CEO of Trimont Real Estate Advisors and Trimont Global, and is responsible for all functions of the company and its affiliates worldwide. He also serves on Trimont’s board of directors and chairs Trimont’s internal advisory council, security committee, and executive operating committee. Ward serves on the alumni board of advisors for Harvard Business School, the Harvard University Alumni Real Estate Board, and the NYU School of Professional Studies Schack Institute of Real Estate Board. He also is an active member of the Washington Bar, the Real Estate Roundtable, the Urban Land Institute (ULI), where he serves on the Global Exchange Council, and the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council (CREFC) in both the United States and Europe. He has spent the bulk of his career directing and managing institutional debt and equity investments into a wide range of core, core-plus and opportunistic real estate assets around the world. Prior to Trimont, Ward served as the president of the Americas for Colliers International, overseeing all Capital Markets & Investment Services functions for the company in the United States, Canada, and Latin America.

Sang Yu is a partner in Apollo’s commercial real estate debt business. He oversees Apollo’s US performing, commercial real estate loan origination, acquisition, and asset management activities which include first mortgage, mezzanine and preferred equity investments, and commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) across managed accounts, and Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance, (NYSE:ARI), a publicly traded commercial mortgage real estate investment trust managed by an affiliate of Apollo. Prior to joining Apollo in 2010, Yu was a director and the head of capital markets in the Asia Real Estate Finance group at Credit Suisse where he was responsible for new issue distribution of CMBS, whole loans and subordinate debt, and the pricing of these products. Before joining Credit Suisse, he held various positions including at Barclays Capital, GE Real Estate, and Fortress Investment Group. Yu holds a BSE with a concentration in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.