7th National Symposium of Women in Real Estate Speaker Bios

Farah Ahmed has a broad range of local, national, and cross-border experience representing investors, operators, lenders, and developers in the acquisition, disposition, development, and financing of various classes of commercial real estate. Ahmed’s real estate capital markets experience includes representation of real estate private equity funds, investment managers, institutional investors, and REITs in the capitalization and financing of real estate through debt or equity at all levels in the capital stack. She handles joint ventures and preferred equity investments, the origination of permanent, bridge or construction mortgage and mezzanine loans, the purchase and sale of loans, and the negotiation of intercreditor, participation, and co-lender relationships. Ahmed is an advisory board member of the NYU School of Professional Studies Schack Institute of Real Estate, and is recognized by several legal guides including Chambers USA, Lawdragon, and The Legal 500.

As chief revenue officer, residential, Whitney Arcaro is responsible for the overall revenue strategy and its implementation for RXR’s extensive residential portfolio, across multiple regions in the United States. She oversees an integrated workstream across Operations, Development, Marketing, Sales/Leasing, and Portfolio Management to enhance the product, create brand premium, and drive revenue streams above competitive assets in each market. Arcaro joined RXR in 2017, serving as executive vice president–head of marketing and retail leasing for the company. She was responsible for overseeing the marketing and communications of RXR’s 25.6 million square feet of commercial assets in Manhattan and the surrounding region, as well as the concepts, design strategy, marketing and strategic branding initiatives for more than 6,200 multi-family units in planning across the region at the time. Arcaro is a member of the Leadership Committee of the American Lung Association. She has produced award-winning feature length and short films featured at SXSW and Sundance Film Festivals, including a critically and politically hailed feature on conditions of veterans, which garnered over 12 awards and coverage in the Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, and The New York Times.

Marissa Ballan is the head of development for Radisson Blu at Choice Hotels where she is spearheading the brand’s expansion throughout the Americas. Prior to joining Choice, Ballan led global investment management at citizenM where she oversaw an investment portfolio of approximately 35 hotels open and in development throughout Europe and North America. She has spent more than 20 years in real estate investments and corporate finance, including 15 years focused on hospitality acquisitions and asset management. Previously, Ballan worked in development and investments at citizenM, real estate investment management at Starwood Hotels and Resorts and started her career at JPMorgan in investment banking and then high yield research where she covered homebuilding, gaming and lodging.

Krystyna M. Blakeslee is a partner in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and a member of the Real Estate Department where she focuses on commercial real estate finance and investment. Blakeslee has led some of the country’s largest and most high-profile commercial real estate transactions in recent years. She concentrates on the origination, acquisition and disposition (including securitization and syndication) of mortgage loans, mezzanine financings, preferred equity, bridge loans and corporate debt. In addition, Blakeslee has extensive experience in restructures and workouts, as well as the exercise of remedies (including, in connection with acquiring assets in bankruptcy). She is also experienced in handling joint venture investments and acquisitions of real estate assets, including hotels, and advises funds in connection with their investment and financing activities in real estate.

Melissa Román Burch is the chief operating officer for the NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). She leads major economic development transactions, initiates tax incentive programs and investments that create jobs in key sectors, and spearheads real estate development on city-owned land. Managing a double bottom line of financial returns and measured social impact, Burch mobilizes public and private investment across the NYCEDC portfolio of 64 million square feet and 230 assets, comprising life sciences, film and entertainment, advanced manufacturing, offshore wind, and green economy businesses. Burch joined the EDC in 2022 after two decades as a leading business executive and property developer. While at Lendlease and Forest City, she assembled, entitled, capitalized, and constructed millions of square feet of mixed-use office, housing, and entertainment developments. A proud civic leader, Burch serves as a trustee of the Henry Street Settlement and has been recognized by Crain’s 40 Under 40, City & State’s Women of Public & Civic Mind, and the Commercial Observer Real Estate Power 100. 

Anar Chudgar is the co-president at Artemis Real Estate Partners, where she is responsible for developing, implementing, and overseeing both equity and credit investing platforms. Chudgar has more than 20 years of experience in real estate principal investing and investment banking. She sits on the firm’s investment committee and serves as portfolio manager for the Income and Growth Fund. Prior to joining Artemis in 2019, Chudgar spent nine years as a partner at GCM Grosvenor, where she co-led the creation and growth of the $5.0 billion real estate platform. Chudgar currently serves as chair of the board of directors of the Pension Real Estate Association as well as being a member of the PREA Foundation. She serves as committee chair of the nominating and governance committee at Spark Youth, and as a global governing trustee of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) for the Americas. Chudgar is also an executive council member at the Real Estate Finance and Investment Center at the University of Texas at Austin and for New York Women Executives in Real Estate (WX).

As executive vice president of development at RXR, Rebecca D’Eloia leads development across multiple asset classes within the company’s ground-up portfolio. Her career has been defined by complex, multi-phased master plans with strong public private partnerships. At RXR, these transformative projects include Garvies Point, a $1B+, 1,100-unit mixed-use redevelopment project in Glen Cove; Veridea, a 1,100 acre, mixed use greenfield in the Research Triangle region of North Carolina; and the redevelopment of Long Island University’s Downtown Brooklyn campus. Prior to joining RXR, D’Eloia was SVP at Forest City Realty Trust, focusing on Pacific Park in Brooklyn, and Barclays Center, home of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets.  She also led the $160M renovation of the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Nassau County.  Prior to Forest City, D’Eloia worked on the redevelopment of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and began her career at the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

Seray Incoglu is an executive vice president and portfolio manager in PIMCO’s New York office, overseeing the global CRE Debt Asset Management team with an additional focus on the firm's investments in non-performing commercial real estate loans. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2020, Incoglu spent 15 years at Wells Fargo Bank within the commercial real estate division. Most recently, she was a team lead in New York responsible for originating, structuring, and managing bridge and construction loans for large private equity funds, multi-generational real estate families, institutional investment firms and large public real estate investment trusts (REITs). Previously, she managed the special situations group in New York.

Helen Jorgensen is responsible for leading strategic sourcing and design management for Host Hotels & Resorts Inc., an S&P 500 company, and the largest lodging real estate investment trust along with one of the largest owners of luxury and upscale hotels. Jorgensen is accountable for maximizing value in transformational design and execution including the strategic management of the FF&E for the portfolio. She is a LEED Accredited Professional and is also a member of Host’s Corporate Responsibility Advisory Committee centered around responsible investment in environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and governance. As a hospitality leader, she developed one of the first hospitality strategic partnership programs to drive reimagined hotel designs and value. She is a 2018 Hospitality Design Magazine’s Platinum Circle Inductee, an advisory board member for Hospitality Design Magazine, and has spoken at multiple industry conferences.

Wesley LePatner is a senior managing director in the real estate group and the global head of Core+ Real Estate, based in New York. LePatner is a member of Blackstone Real Estate’s Investment Committee and serves as a director and the chief operating officer of Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT). Prior to joining Blackstone in 2014,

President & CEO Cheryl McKissack Daniel leads McKissack & McKissack, the oldest minority and woman-owned professional design and construction firm in the nation. With more than 30 years of experience in construction, she serves as principal-in-charge and project executive on numerous high-profile projects, including major work in the healthcare, education, transportation, and commercial sectors and is actively involved in project oversight and management, ensuring that diversity is implemented during each project phase. Under her direction, McKissack & McKissack has contracted more than $50 billion dollars in construction over the past decade. McKissack is involved with some of New York’s largest projects and also serves as the MTA Independent Engineer Consultant overseeing the Capital Construction Program of the nation’s largest transportation system. She serves on various boards, including the New York Building Foundation, New York Building Congress, New York Women’s Forum and Women’s Builders Council.

Priyanka Garg joined MRECS in 2020 and serves as managing director, head of credit strategies. She is a member of the MRECS Investment Committee. Garg also serves as executive vice president–portfolio and asset management of CMTG. Garg has more than 20 years of hands-on real estate investment management experience, including leadership positions at Treeview Real Estate Advisors and Westbrook Partners. Her prior professional experience includes positions with Perry Capital Real Estate Partners and Goldman Sachs within its Whitehall Real Estate Funds group.

Rika Lisslö, as vice president of Hyatt Americas development team, is responsible for origination, portfolio growth, development, brand partnership, and identifying new business opportunities. She oversees growth of Hyatt’s Lifestyle, Wellness, Luxury & Collection brands: Thompson, AlilA, Park Hyatt, Miraval, Andaz, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, Hyatt Centric, Destination, Unbound, and JDV. Lisslö has broad-based development expertise and a proven track record of success in mixed-use development; leasing, capital markets, investments, sales, brand building, F&B, luxury retail and entertainment. In addition, she maintains high client and capital partner relationships across multiple industry disciplines. She is an accomplished deal maker who is skilled in market research, sight selection, negotiation, and transaction execution.

Nicole Kushner Meyer is president of Kushner. Meyer spearheads deal sourcing, investor relations, and execution of real estate development for the firm. She currently oversees a development pipeline of 12.9 million square feet of residential, commercial, and industrial space, as well as a strategic national acquisitions expansion comprising thousands of multifamily units across thirteen states. Previously, Meyer worked at Ralph Lauren for 10 years focused on the design and development of retail experiences globally. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from NYU in 2004 with a degree in Architecture and Urban Design, and received a Masters in Urban Planning from the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service in 2006. Meyer also holds a Commercial Real Estate Certificate from Cornell University.

Jillian Mariutti is a senior director in the New York office of JLL Capital Markets, Americas. She joined JLL as part of the HFF acquisition 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. Mariutti started at HFF in June 2019. Before that, she was a director at Mission Capital. Prior to Mission, she worked at JCRA Financial LLC as the head of real estate North America, where she was responsible for providing foreign exchange and interest rate risk management services to real estate clients. Mariutti joined JCRA from Wells Fargo in New York, where she was a vice president, and marketed and structured interest rate management solutions for public REITS, multifamily, and hospitality finance clients.

Colleen O’Connor currently serves as BioMed Realty’s executive vice president, market lead for the East Coast and UK Markets, overseeing leasing and operations for over six-million square feet of lab and office across two continents. Her role involves driving BioMed Realty’s portfolio strategy, identifying growth opportunities, managing leasing and operational activities for existing assets and new developments and serving as a leader in our local communities and the industry. Throughout her decade-long tenure at BioMed Realty, O’Connor has bolstered the Company’s reputation by cultivating trusted partnerships with key figures in the real estate, venture capital, and life sciences industries. Her leadership extends to her roles on the Board of Directors for NAIOP and CREW Boston, where she influences industry-wide initiatives and advances equality in the commercial real estate industry.  Prior to her time at BioMed Realty, O’Connor worked in finance and accounting roles at Fidelity Investments and PwC.          

Rebecca Rockey is the deputy chief economist and global head of forecasting at Cushman & Wakefield. In her decade at the firm, her responsibilities have evolved significantly. Her focus spans economics, demographics, financial markets and commercial real estate—both at the macro and micro levels. She manages the production of national and metro-level commercial real estate forecasts across the Americas, develops predictive econometric and statistical models to enhance the firms’ analytical capabilities and contributes to numerous white papers, webinars, media requests and industry/client presentations. In her global role, she extends this expertise to other regions. She is a strategic internal and external advisor across service lines and regions, connecting research themes to actionable and tactical views on the market, and an advisor to the NYC Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the New York State Budget Division, and the DC Policy Center. She is also a participant in the Beige Book for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 

Elise Wagner, co-chair of Kramer Levin’s Land Use department, advises real estate owners, developers, lenders and nonprofit institutions regarding the land use issues they face when planning, financing and developing new buildings and when rehabilitating and repositioning existing buildings. Wagner’s work encompasses coordinating the public approval processes for major public-private development projects involving cooperation between private developers and New York City and state agencies, designing efficient strategies for obtaining approval of use changes and enlargements, negotiating multi-party transactions for the transfer of development rights, and performing due diligence for the purchase and financing of major properties.

Becky Zelenka advises clients on all aspects of fund formation and the ongoing operations of funds and their managers. Zelenka’s practice maintains a particular focus on the structuring and offering of private equity funds and other alternative investments. Clients seek her representation in connection with a range of funds, such as private equity/buyout, credit, real estate, special situations, infrastructure, regional-focused, life sciences, funds of funds, employee, and others. Clients also turn to Zelenka on fund and manager-related matters such as employee incentive arrangements, stake investments, spin-out transactions, fund restructurings and reorganizations, GP-led secondaries, placement agent arrangements, and regulatory matters. Zelenka was chosen as one of Law360’s 2023 MVPs in Fund Formation. She is recognized as an "Up and Coming" lawyer by Chambers USA in Private Equity: Fund Formation, and by Legal 500 as a "Leading Lawyer" in Private Equity Funds. Included in Private Funds Management’s “30 Under 40” list, Zelenka is noted for being a leading lawyer in several private equity areas including buyout, real estate, infrastructure, credit, and employee funds.