Speaker Bios: 28th Annual REIT Symposium

Angela M. Aman has served as Kilroy Realty’s chief executive officer and as a member of the Board of Directors since January 2024.  Prior to joining Kilroy, Aman served as president, chief financial officer, and treasurer at Brixmor Property Group from September 2023 to January 2024 and as executive vice president, chief financial officer, and treasurer from May 2016 until her promotion in September 2023.

Prior to joining Brixmor, Aman held chief financial officer roles at Starwood Retail Partners from 2015 to 2016 and Retail Properties of America, Inc. from 2011 to 2015. From 2005 to 2011, she was a member of the RREEF real estate securities team, serving as an investment analyst and later as a portfolio manager from 2001 to 2005, she was a member of the real estate investment banking group at Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. Aman is a member of Nareit, ICSC, and the Urban Land Institute (ULI), and serves on the Board of Trustees of Equity Residential, where she is chair of the audit committee.  

Following four years as president and CEO of American Tower Corporation, Thomas A. Bartlett retired on February 1, 2024. To facilitate the transition, Bartlett currently serves as special advisor to the CEO until May 1, 2024. American Tower is a global digital infrastructure company serving customers in 25 countries around the world. Bartlett joined the company in April 2009 as executive vice president and chief financial officer, and served as the company’s CEO from March 2020 to January 2024. A champion of international engagement, Bartlett has led global businesses, driven significant market entry and expansion initiatives across mature, developing, and earlier stage markets; navigated a major market exit; and regularly engaged with senior government leaders worldwide on business and geopolitical issues.

In his company and broader industry Bartlett has invested in, and taken leadership roles with, a range of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. He spearheaded American Tower’s CEO Advisory Council, issued a CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion Pledge, and championed the creation of DEI Councils in key regions around the world. He also chaired the effort to increase the REIT industry’s collective DEI philanthropic endeavors through the NAREIT Foundation and was one of the lead founding donors. In November 2023, NAREIT presented him with its DEI Award, recognizing the individual executive who best demonstrated a strong commitment to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion within their companies and the REIT industry.

Eric Bolton serves as chairman and CEO of Mid-America Apartment Communities (MAA). He was named CEO in October of 2001 and has served as chairman since October of 2002. Bolton has been a member of MAA’s management team since April of 1994, serving as chief operating officer prior to his appointment as CEO. Bolton has led the company through significant growth, including two large public M&A transactions.

Jackie Brady is a managing director and head of global debt solutions at PGIM Private Alternatives. Based in New York, Brady heads the firm’s global debt solutions team and is responsible for positioning PGIM Private Alternative’s debt capabilities globally, seeking to broaden the field of prospective investors for real estate credit and other private credit strategies across the PGIM Private Alternatives platform.

Brady joined PGIM Private Alternatives with more than two decades of experience in the real estate debt capital markets, having served as a principal and portfolio manager at Canopy Investment Advisors and Capmark Investments, LP. Most recently, she was a senior leader at CenterSquare Investment Management where she was responsible for enhancing and developing CenterSquare’s relationships with institutional clients and consultants. Brady currently chairs the PREA Publications Committee and is a leader of ULI’s Global Exchange Council. She also serves as an independent director of Realty Income Corporation.

Scott Brinker has been Healthpeak Properties president and chief executive officer, and a member of the board of directors, since October 2022. From January 2019 to October 2022, Brinker served as president and chief investment officer, and from March 2018 to December 2019, he served as executive vice president and chief investment officer. Prior to that, he served in various investment and portfolio management-related capacities at Welltower Inc., a healthcare REIT, from July 2001 to January 2017, most recently as its executive vice president and chief investment officer.

Steve Buller is a portfolio manager in the equity division at Fidelity Investments. In this role, Buller manages Fidelity Real Estate Investment Portfolio, Fidelity Real Estate Investment ETF, and Fidelity Advisor Global Real Estate Fund. Prior to assuming his current responsibilities, he managed Fidelity and Fidelity Advisor International Real Estate Funds, and their VIP Real Estate Portfolio. Previously, he worked as an analyst covering real estate investment trusts (REITs) and the environmental industry in Fidelity’s Equity group, and as a fixed income analyst at Fidelity International Limited’s (FIL) London office. He has been in the financial industry since joining Fidelity in 1992.

Debra A. Cafaro is chairman and CEO of Ventas, Inc., an S&P 500 company and leading real estate investment trust operating at the intersection of healthcare and real estate. Ventas owns approximately 1400 properties, serving a large and growing aging population. A recognized industry leader, Cafaro set and oversaw the execution of a long-term strategy that drove Ventas’s market capitalization to $28 billion in 2019, from $200 million since her leadership began in 1999.

Cafaro is broadly engaged across business, public policy, academic, sports and non-profit sectors. Cafaro is a past chair of the Real Estate Roundtable, NAREIT, and The Economic Club of Chicago. She serves on the boards of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., the University of Chicago and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  She is an advisory board member of the Harvard Kennedy School Taubman Center for State and Local Government and is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, The Business Council and the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago. Cafaro is a partner of the NHL Pittsburgh Penguins and the NWSL Chicago Red Stars.

Christina Chiu is president of Empire State Realty Trust, having previously served as its executive vice president, chief operating officer, and chief financial officer.

Prior to joining ESRT in 2020, Chiu had an 18-year career at Morgan Stanley where she served as managing director and chief operating officer of the global listed real assets investing business. She began her career as a real estate investment banking analyst on both principal investing and strategic advisory transactions.

Chiu is a member of the Real Estate Roundtable Real Estate Capital Policy Advisory Committee, vice chair of the ULI Technology & Real Estate Council, and a David Rockefeller Fellow of the Partnership for NYC. She serves on the American Red Cross National Board of Governors, as well as the board of University Settlement Society of New York.

Adam O. Emmerich is a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.  He focuses his practice primarily on mergers and acquisitions, including divestitures, spin-offs, joint ventures and financing transactions, particularly in the REIT and publicly traded real estate areas, throughout the United States and globally. Among many other significant REIT transactions recently and over the years, Emmerich, together with his partner Robin Panovka, led Wachtell Lipton’s efforts in advising on some of the most high profile REIT transactions including: Prologis in its $26 billion all-stock acquisition of Duke Realty, the largest REIT M&A deal in the last ten years, VEREIT in its all-stock acquisition by Realty Income, to create a $50 billion combined company, Spirit Realty Capital in its $9.3 billion all-stock acquisition by Realty Income Corporation, PS Business Parks in its $7.6 billion acquisition by Blackstone, CoreSite in its $10.1 billion acquisition by American Tower, and Public Storage in its $2.2 billion acquisition of Simply Self Storage from Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust. He has been profiled together with Robin Panovka by Lawdragon for their work in REIT and real estate M&A, was named one of Law 360’s Real Estate MVPs and one of Hollywood’s Top Dealmakers of 2022 by The Hollywood Reporter.  Emmerich is co-chair of the advisory board of the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate REIT Center and has served as co-chair of Schack’s Annual Symposium on REITs since its inception.

Conor Flynn was named CEO of Kimco Realty and appointed to the Company’s Board of Directors in January 2016. Flynn joined Kimco in 2003 as an asset manager and has held a variety of senior leadership roles within the company, including that of president, chief operating officer, chief investment officer, and western region president. Flynn serves as the first vice chair and a member of the Executive Board of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT). In addition, he is a founding member of Nareit’s Dividends Through Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion CEO Council. He is also a member of the Real Estate Roundtable and a trustee of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).

Jonathan Gray is president and chief operating officer of Blackstone, and is a member of Blackstone’s board of directors. He sits on its management committee and most of its investment committees. Gray previously served as the firm’s global head of real estate, which he helped to build into the largest real estate platform in the world. He joined Blackstone in 1992.

Gray currently serves as chairman of the board of Hilton Worldwide. He also serves on the board of Corebridge and Harlem Village Academies. Gray and his wife Mindy established the Basser Center for BRCA at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine focused on the prevention and treatment of BRCA-related cancers. They also established NYC Kids RISE in partnership with the City of New York to accelerate college savings for low-income children.

Ron Havner is Chairman of the Board for Public Storage. Havner joined Public Storage in 1986, held a variety of senior management positions, and served as Chief Executive Officer from 2002-2018. Public Storage is the largest self-storage company in the world with more than 3,000 facilities in 40 states and 7 Western European nations, over 6,000 employees, and nearly 2 million customers. Public Storage is a member of the S&P 500 and FT Global 500. Havner serves as an independent director for AvalonBay Communities, Easy Ice, and is the former Chairman of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT). 

Maria R. Hawthorne is an experienced public company board member and accomplished CEO whose experience spans 35 years in commercial real estate. Hawthorne is recognized for her deep expertise in commercial real estate, financial and operational strategies, acquisitions and development, capital markets, enterprise risk management, and leadership development. She brings deep board governance experience and is qualified to serve as a financial expert on audit committees.

Hawthorne currently serves on the board of directors for Essex Property Trust where she is a member of the audit committee. Essex is a member of the S&P 500, and is a fully integrated REIT that acquires, develops, redevelops, and manages multifamily apartment communities located in supply-constrained markets located on the west coast. In addition, she serves on the board of directors for ASGN, Incorporated where she is a member of the audit committee. ASGN is a leading provider of IT services and professional solutions.

Hawthorne retired as the president and CEO of PS Business Parks, Inc. (PSB) in September 2020. In addition to CEO, she held a variety of leadership positions at PSB where she gained a foundation in strategic and financial planning, capital markets expertise, acquisitions, development and operations of a public REIT. Hawthorne’s roles at PSB included chief financial officer, chief administrative officer, and executive vice president. She also served on the PSB Board of Directors from 2016 through 2022.

Maria is known for building strong, collaborative relationships, and is passionate about developing and mentoring leaders of the future. Other Board experience includes Vice-Chair of the Executive Board for the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT) and she is a member of the Real Estate Roundtable for the Southern California National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). She graduated from Pomona College with a BA in International Relations.

Lauren Hochfelder is a managing director of Morgan Stanley, co-CEO, and head of the Americas for Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing, the global private real estate investment management arm of Morgan Stanley with $54 billion of  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 (2019-2022) 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.

Jeff Horowitz joined Bank of America Securities in April 2005 and is global head of Real Estate, Gaming and Lodging Investment Banking. The REGL team has offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Horowitz covers a broad range of public and private companies and works on mergers and acquisitions, public and private capital raising, and general corporate advisory transactions. Prior to joining B of A Securities, Horowitz spent approximately 12 years at Citigroup, where he was a managing director within Real Estate Investment Banking. Prior to joining Citigroup, he spent three and a half years at Lazard Frères as an associate in Capital Markets and in Real Estate. Horowitz began his career as an Analyst in the Real Estate Group at The First Boston Corporation. He is a member of NAREIT, the Real Estate Roundtable, the Policy Advisory Board of the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, the Industry Real Estate Financing Advisory Council, the Board of the Ferguson Center  for Leadership Excellence and is a former board member of the Urban Land Institute. Horowitz  has also received the 2021 NAREIT, Industry Achievement Award.

As president and CEO for Macerich, Jackson Hsieh guides one of the nation’s leading retail real estate companies with high-quality properties in many of the best US markets. Hsieh brings powerful leadership experience in both real estate and investment banking to Macerich, where he takes the reins at a critical juncture in the company’s evolution: Macerich will mark 30 years as a public company in 2024.

Prior to joining Macerich, Hsieh was president and chief executive officer of Spirit Realty Capital beginning in 2017, where he led the successful merger of Spirit with Realty Income Corporation through an all-stock transaction with an enterprise value of approximately $9.3 billion. Before Spirit,  Hsieh spent decades as a high-level global banking executive, including roles as managing director and vice chairman of investment banking at Morgan Stanley and vice chairman and sole/co-global head of UBS’s Real Estate Investment Banking Group. He is a member of the Nareit Advisory Board of Governors.

Andy Jonas is co-head of the Real Estate department within Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs, which is responsible for the firm’s global real estate, lodging, and gaming business. He is also a member of the Investment Banking Executive Committee. Jonas joined Goldman Sachs in 1997 as a vice president, was named managing director in 1999, and partner in 2006. Prior to joining the firm, Jonas was in the Real Estate department at Merrill Lynch from 1991 to 1997. Before that, he worked for Ayala Land in Manila, Philippines, as a summer associate in 1990. Earlier in his career, Jonas worked for Olympia & York from 1988 to 1989, and as an analyst for Kidder Peabody from 1986 to 1988.vHe is vice-chairman of the advisory board for Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center. He is also a member of the National Association of Real Estate Trusts and the Urban Land Institute.

Nick Joseph is a managing director and head of Citi’s Real Estate and Lodging team and the Global Real Estate Super Sector. The US Real Estate and Lodging team has coverage of more than 80 equity securities, and has consistently been ranked as the top team in external client polls including Institutional Investor. Joseph is active in the real estate industry including being on the NAREIT Best Financial Practices Council and was named a Rising Star of Wall Street Research in 2015. Before joining the Citi Real Estate and Lodging team in 2010, he worked at the Citi Private Bank.

Cedrik Lachance is Green Street’s director of research, leading a global roster of more than 70 expert analysts in commercial real estate, and is a member of the executive leadership team. Under Lachance’s guidance, Green Street provides actionable capital allocation intelligence and investment recommendations on public and private real estate. The team is recognized for thought-leading work on strategic topics, niche and core property sectors, more than 130 publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and detailed analytics on 80 markets in the United States and Europe.

During his 18-year career at Green Street, Lachance has led the global REIT research team; been sector head of the US retail, office, industrial, and net lease sectors;  was the first publishing analyst in Europe; and managed the global Quantitative Analytics team. His breadth of experience across the commercial real estate investment spectrum is integral to Green Street’s success in providing ground-breaking research and analytics on all aspects of the public and private property markets.

John Lawrence is the inaugural president of the NYU REIT Investment Fund, where he manages the team trading real estate equities for the purpose of funding scholarships for Schack students. Lawrence built the fund’s investment strategy, organizational structure, and educational curriculum.

As president, he oversees the fund’s liquid investments and manages the workflow of over 30 NYU SPS Schack analysts and economists. Lawrence is a member of the Acquisitions and Capital Markets teams at Ashcroft Capital, a vertically integrated multifamily investment firm focusing on the Sun Belt. He connects institutional equity partners to value-add investments, developing relationships with traditional investors for AVAF III, AMFF I, and individual JV partnerships. Prior to Ashcroft Capital, Lawrence worked in KPMG’s advisory arm.

Matthew J. Lustig is chairman of investment banking, North America as well as head of real estate and lodging at Lazard, advising clients on strategic transactions in the real estate and lodging industries.

Previously, Lustig served as head of investment banking, North America managing financial advisory businesses relating to mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, private capital advisory, Lazard middle market, shareholder advisory, and capital structure advisory. Separately he has headed the real estate private equity business of Lazard and its post-IPO successors, which included multiple funds with over $2.5 billion of equity capital invested in public and private real estate operating companies and properties.

Prior to joining Lazard in 1989, Lustig was with Drexel Burnham Lambert and Chase Manhattan Bank. He serves on the boards of Boston Properties, Inc. and Ventas, Inc. He serves on the advisory boards of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, his alma mater; The Zell-Lurie Real Estate Center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (former chairman); and the Milstein Center for Real Estate at Columbia Business School. He is a former executive committee and board member of the Pension Real Estate Association, a member of the Real Estate Roundtable, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Joel S. Marcus, JD, CPA, is executive chairman and founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc., a life science REIT that pioneered the Labspace® niche in 1994 and transformed it from a specialty niche to a mainstream asset class. Alexandria, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in January 2024, is the preeminent, longest-tenured owner, operator, and developer uniquely focused on collaborative life science, AgTech, and advanced technology mega campuses in AAA innovation clusters. Since co-founding Alexandria with a $19 million Series A, Marcus has led its remarkable growth into an S&P 500 company with a $33 billion total market capitalization and a total shareholder return exceeding 1,500% as of 2023. Alexandria has one the strongest balance sheets in the REIT industry, with $5.8 billion in liquidity and no debt maturities until 2025. The company’s best-in-class reporting practices have earned it eight NAREIT Investor CARE awards, including the most Gold awards of any equity REIT.

Andrea L. Olshan serves as CEO and president of Seritage Growth Properties. Prior to Seritage, Olshan served as CEO of Olshan Properties from 2012 to 2021. She now serves as chair of Olshan Properties’ Board of Directors. Outside of her professional ventures, she is actively involved in numerous civic and social service organizations including serving as vice chair of the Board of 92NY, trustee of the Horace Mann School, and board member of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons. Olshan also serves as an advisor to Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities.

Robin Panovka co-chairs Wachtell Lipton’s REIT and Real Estate M&A practices, which are consistently at the forefront of M&A and other major transactions in the REIT, private equity, real estate, hospitality and gaming industries. He also advises on corporate governance activism defense, strategy, cross-border transactions, and large scale development projects, including the redevelopment of the World Trade Center and Little Island in Manhattan. Panovka has long been named one of the Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in the US, and is ranked as one of the leading M&A and REIT lawyers by Chambers, Legal 500, Who’s Who Legal and similar publications. He has been featured in a number of publications, including  Lawdragon Magazine and American Lawyer, and is a recipient of New York University’s Urban Leadership Award.

Dana Petitto is a managing director in Brookfield’s Real Estate Group, currently serving as the chief operating officer and portfolio manager for Brookfield REIT. Previously, Petitto held a number of roles across the organization, most recently serving as managing director of finance responsible for reporting of Brookfield Property Partners, the firm’s former flagship public real estate vehicle. Prior to joining Brookfield in 2005, Petitto was a manager in the corporate finance department of Bristol-Myers Squibb and in the audit group at KPMG.

Anton Pick, an NYU graduate student hailing from Paris, is the inaugural portfolio manager of the NYU Schack REIT Investment Fund. Pick oversees the allocation, global strategy, and investment oversight for this long-only fund, investing in US-based listed REITs. This non-profit organization, managed by students for students, aims to fund scholarships using a portion of the annual dividend yield, as well as allowing students to invest real money in real assets.

In addition to his involvement in the REIT industry, Pick is active with his family company, Cofinance Group, an international real estate investment firm. He also works with North Point Capital on the acquisitions team, where engages in sourcing, underwriting, and raising capital for multifamily deals across the US.

Pick previously worked in Europe at AXA Investment Managers and BNP Paribas, where he was involved in acquisitions, asset management, and fund management activities. Notably, he contributed to one of France’s largest healthcare transactions, a $700 million Pan-European portfolio.

Andrew Power is the chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors of Digital Realty. Power also has served as Digital Realty’s president since 2021 and as chief financial officer since 2015 with responsibility for global portfolio operations, technology development and innovation, service provider and enterprise customer solutions, asset management and information technology, as well as the company’s financial functions across its global platform.

Prior to joining Digital Realty, Power held positions of increasing responsibility at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he most recently served as managing director of Real Estate, Gaming and Lodging Investment Banking and was responsible for relationships with over 40 public and private companies, including Digital Realty. Prior to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Power was employed by Citigroup, where he held similar positions. During his career, he has managed the execution of over $30 billion of public and private capital raises, including the largest REIT IPO to date, and more than $19 billion of merger and acquisition transactions. Andy was part of the lead underwriting team that advised Digital Realty on its initial public offering in 2004 and served as a lead manager on nearly every subsequent public capital raise.

Mary Hogan Preusse is the chairman of the board of Digital Realty (DLR), the lead independent director of Kimco Realty (KIM) and serves on the boards of Host Hotels and Resorts (HST) and Realty Income (O). She is also a senior advisor to Fifth Wall, the venture capital firm. Preusse has spent her entire career investing in and analyzing the REIT industry,and possesses over thirty years of experience in real estate, investment management, leadership, and strategy. Prior to her current work as board director and advisor, Preusse served as managing director and head of Americas listed real estate at APG Asset Management US.

Benjamin Schall is AvalonBay Communities’ chief executive officer and president, and has been a director of the company since January 2021. Schall was previously AvalonBay's president, joining the company in January 2021, and prior to that, the chief executive officer, president, and trustee of Seritage Growth Properties, a publicly traded real estate investment trust principally engaged in owning, developing, and managing a diversified portfolio of retail and mixed-use properties throughout the United States. Prior to becoming CEO and president of Seritage in May 2015, Schall served as chief operating officer of Rouse Properties, Inc. from 2012 to 2015. Prior to that, he was senior vice president with Vornado Realty Trust. He is a member of the Executive Committee of NAREIT and co-chair of the Executive Committee of the University Settlement Group.

Willy Schlumberger is a managing director with the New York-based Real Estate & Lodging Investment Banking team. He is responsible for client coverage, business origination, and transaction execution. Schlumberger has led numerous mergers and acquisition advisory assignments as well as debt and equity capital raises in both the public and private capital markets. Schlumberger also has significant experience structuring real estate solutions for corporate clients. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan in 2007, Schlumberger worked in Mergers & Acquisitions at CSFB in their New York and London offices for five years. He started his career in management consulting for A.T. Kearney in their New York and Paris offices, where he focused on restructuring and post merger integration.

Suzanne Sorkin is a senior vice president at Adelante Capital Management, where she is a research analyst and member of the Investment Committee. Sorkin leads the firm’s ESG investing efforts. She has been with Adelante for almost seven years and has 20-plus  years of experience in the REIT industry.  Prior to joining Adelante, Sorkin held various positions on the buy side, including portfolio manager at APG Asset Management and research analyst at Millennium. Sorkin currently serves on the investment committees for JEWISHcolorado, MGMA, and Graland Country Day School.

Owen D. Thomas is the chairman and chief executive officer of BXP. He has served as the CEO and a director of BXP since April 2013, and he was appointed chairman of the board in May 2022. Thomas is a director of Lehman Brothers Holdings and served as its first chairman from 2012 until 2013. Prior to Lehman, Thomas was with Morgan Stanley for 24 years, serving in various roles, business units, and locations. Thomas is a director of the Real Estate Roundtable, a member of the Advisory Board of Governors of NAREIT, and a member of the Economic Club of New York. He is a former chairman of ULI and of PREA.

Brendan Wallace is a co-founder and managing partner at Fifth Wall, where he guides the firm’s strategic vision. Prior to starting Fifth Wall, Wallace co-founded Identified, a workforce optimization data and analytics company that raised $33 million of venture funding and was acquired by Workday in 2014. He also co-founded Cabify, the largest ridesharing service in Latin America, and has been an active investor, leading more than 60 angel investments including Bonobos, Dollar Shave Club, Lyft, SpaceX, Clutter, and Philz Coffee. Wallace started his career at Goldman Sachs in the real estate, hospitality, and gaming group before joining The Blackstone Group’s real estate private equity practice.

Seth Weintrob is a managing director of Morgan Stanley and global head of real estate, lodging, and gaming. Weintrob has almost 28 years of investment banking experience at Morgan Stanley and has completed well over 200 strategic and capital transactions aggregating over $750 billion in value. Weintrob has advised his clients on some of the largest industry-defining M&A and IPO transactions during his career.

Weintrob joined Morgan Stanley in 1996, and has also spent time in Morgan Stanley’s mergers, acquisitions, and restructuring department. He covers a range of blue-chip public and private clients in the real estate industry. Weintrob has significant transaction experience and expertise in mergers and acquisitions and the full range of financing products. Weintrob is a member of NAREIT and Real Estate Roundtable.

Sharon Wilson Géno is the president of NMHC. She is a 30-year veteran of the housing industry, during which time she has helped guide numerous for-profit, nonprofit, and governmental entities around housing affordability, community development, and other housing policy challenges. Géno most recently served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Volunteers of America National Services (VOANS), the housing and healthcare affiliate of the Volunteers of America parent organization, and one of the largest nonprofit affordable and mixed income/mixed-use housing operators in the nation. VOANS operated 240 properties and nearly 13,000 units in over 40 states during her tenure. Before joining Volunteers of America, Géno was a partner in a private practice in Washington, DC where she advised on housing and community development projects, government contracting, corporate structure, internal governance, and compliance with federal, state, and local laws.

During her career, Géno has served as both in-house counsel and outside general counsel for various types of organizations. Her legal experience includes providing advice regarding government and non government contracts, nonprofit organizations, corporate formation, litigation, employment law, tax law, and other topics. She has also taught courses on housing law and policy at the George Washington School of Law and Georgetown University. She has also worked on legislation and advocacy efforts related to affordable housing programs on both the local and national levels.

Don Wood has been a key figure at Federal Realty since 1998, serving in roles from chief financial officer to president before becoming chief executive officer in 2003. His tenure was preceded by eight years at ITT Corporation, New York, where he was deputy controller and chief financial officer of Caesars World, Inc. Wood’s career began at Arthur Andersen, followed by a position as vice president of finance at Trump Taj Mahal casino. Wood formerly chaired NAREIT, contributed as a member of the ICSC executive committee, served on the board of Quality Care Properties, and was involved with the World President’s Organization's US Capital Chapter. Ernst and Young has recognized him as “Entrepreneur of the Year in Real Estate.”

Stephen Yalof is the president and chief executive officer of Tanger, a leading operator of upscale, open-air shopping centers across 20 US states and Canada, with a team dedicated to delivering the best value, experience and opportunity for Tanger’s communities, stakeholders, and partners. Working together with the Tanger team, Yalof is leading the company in fulfilling its vision to use customer insights and experience to inform the future of shopping.

Yalof joined Tanger in April 2020 as president and chief operating officer, bringing with him over 25 years of experience in the commercial real estate industry, primarily in the retail space. He succeeded Steven B. Tanger as CEO in January 2021, and has been a member of the board of directors since July 2020. He serves as a trustee of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), as well as on the advisory boards of HeadCount and the Center for Real Estate & Urban Analysis (CREUA) at George Washington University, his alma mater.