Speaker Bios: Conference On Capital Markets In Real Estate

David J. Adelman is a Philadelphia-based entrepreneur and active private investor. As CEO of Philadelphia-based Campus Apartments, Adelman redefined the college living experience in University City and nationwide; today, he is widely recognized as a national leader in student housing development and management, with more than two billion dollars of assets under management across 18 states housing more than 25,000 students.

Adelman is the founder and vice chairman of Philadelphia-based FS Investments, a global alternative asset manager with $82 billion of assets under management dedicated to delivering superior performance and innovative investment solutions, and is founder of Darco Capital, his family office investment vehicle, that has made over 90 venture capital and growth capital investments ranging across climate tech, food, spirits, fintech, hospitality, sports and media, and well-known consumer-facing brands. Adelman is also chairman of 76 DevCo, responsible for conceptualizing and building a $3.2 billion privately funded Arena District in the heart of Philadelphia. He is a partner in Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment which owns the 76ers, the NJ Devils, Crystal Palace, and the Prudential Center among others.

Greg Blank is a senior managing director in the infrastructure group where he focuses on investments in the digital infrastructure sector. Since joining Blackstone, Blank has worked in both the New York and Hong Kong offices in the private equity and infrastructure groups and has been involved in the execution of numerous Blackstone investments including QTS Realty Trust, Signature Aviation, the data center joint venture with Digital Realty, Phoenix Tower International, Hotwire Communications, NCR, Kronos, Paysafe, Blue Yonder, Ipreo, and Optiv. 

Prior to joining Blackstone, Blank was an associate at Texas Pacific Group (TPG) in San Francisco where he was involved in the evaluation and execution of private equity transactions. Prior to that, Blank worked in investment banking at Goldman, Sachs & Co. focused on Technology, Media and Telecommunications clients. He serves on the board of directors of QTS Realty Trust, Signature Aviation, the data center joint venture with Digital Realty, Phoenix Tower International, and Hotwire Communications.

Jeff T. Blau is the chief executive officer and a partner of Related Companies, the most prominent privately-owned real estate company in the United States. Blau joined Related in 1990. He also serves as chairman and is a founding partner of energyRe, a leading independent company developing transformative clean energy projects across the country. As chief executive officer of Related, Blau is responsible for directing and overseeing new developments worth more than $60 billion in virtually every sector of the real estate industry. He is responsible for the strategic direction of the company, overall management of the firm, the pursuit of new development opportunities and corporate acquisitions and financing activities across all business platforms.

In his role as chairman and founding partner of energyRe, Blau led the recruitment of the company’s executive management team, and continues to oversee the company's foundational, nation-leading renewable energy projects including Clean Path NY and Leading Light Wind. Clean Path NY is the largest renewable energy infrastructure project in the United States and is an $11 billion transmission-led development, consisting of a 175-mile underground transmission line and 3,800 MW of solar and wind generation. Leading Light Wind, is a $6 billion, off-shore wind project in the New York Bight. Blau also serves on the Board of Directors of Equinox Holdings, Inc., the Central Park Conservancy, the New York City Partnership Fund, Robin Hood Foundation, Real Estate Roundtable, The Wharton Graduate School, Trinity School, Lincoln Center, and The Mount Sinai Medical Center.

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

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

Ben Brown is a managing partner in Brookfield’s Real Estate Group, where he is head of the Americas  region and global head of office. Brown is responsible for overseeing all real estate activities in the  Americas, including investments and portfolio management. As global sector head for Brookfield’s office  business, he also oversees one of the largest office portfolios in the world with more than 400 high quality properties comprising nearly 180 million square feet in gateway cities worldwide.

Brown is a member of the Real Estate Board of New York’s Executive Committee, and he serves on the Boards of Big Brothers Big Sisters of NYC and Hudson River Park Friends. He holds a Bachelor of Science  Degree in Business Administration from Northeastern University.

Cia Buckley Marakovits is president and chief investment officer of Dune Real Estate Partners. In these roles, she is responsible for the management and performance of Dune’s investment activity and operating business. Prior to joining Dune, Buckley Marakovits was the president of the US Fund Business for JER Partners, an affiliate of the JE Robert Companies. She started her career in 1988 in the real estate finance group at Banker Trust. In addition to her current role at Dune, Buckley Marakovits is an active member of the broader real estate community.

She is a full member and former Trustee of the Urban Land Institute, serves on the board of directors of the Pension Real Estate Association, the Columbia Business School MBA Real Estate Program Advisory Board, and the Executive Committee of the Zell-Lurie Real Estate Center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Buckley Marakovits is a former board member of Taubman Centers, a current trustee of Phillips Exeter Academy, on the board of directors of SparkYouth NYC, and an advisor to Healing Realty Trust.

Marty Burger is the founder, chairman and CEO of Infinite Global Real Estate Partners, a real estate company established to focus on development, acquisitions, financing and fund management. Prior to Infinite, Burger was the CEO of Silverstein Properties, where he led the company’s day-to-day activities from 2010 through 2023. Burger was CEO of Artisan RE Ventures, which he founded in 2006. Prior to Artisan, Burger spent 15 years at Related, including serving as president of Related Las Vegas and executive vice president of The Related Companies, L.P. 

From 1994 to 1997, Mr. Burger was a Vice President at The Blackstone Group, and from 1993 to 1994, he worked for Goldman Sachs’ Whitehall RE funds, working on acquisitions for their real estate opportunity funds. He is a trustee or board member of ULI, the Zell/Lurie RE Center at the Wharton School, CREF at Cornell University, NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate, and the Fisher Center at UC Berkeley.  He is an active member of the RE Roundtable in Washington, DC, and is on the Directors’ Advisory Council and the New York City Mortgage Committee of M&T Bank. Burger was a member of NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ Transition Team, is a Trustee of the CBC, a board member of the Partnership for NYC, and a REBNY Governor.  He is also a board member or Trustee of SparkYouth, National Jewish, and the FIDF.

Peter Cannava is a managing director and head of Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital (MFC), the country’s largest multifamily lender for both conventional and affordable developments. MFC specializes in permanent and bridge debt for multifamily assets financed through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs, Federal Housing Administration-insured financing programs, and the Wells Fargo balance sheet. Cannava has over 23 years of experience on Wall Street as an investment banker raising capital to finance multifamily housing, infrastructure, hospitals, stadiums, and other real estate assets in the capital markets.

Cannava has held various leadership positions in Wells Fargo Securities within the Corporate and Investment Bank including head of public finance and structured finance. During that time, Cannava helped build a leading municipal finance practice serving as senior underwriter on $15 billion of municipal bonds annually, managing a $40 billion municipal derivative book and $6 billion investor leverage portfolio. He had the pleasure of leading some of the most innovative financings in the municipal marketplace that were recognized by the Bond Buyer and Environmental Finance Awards. Currently, Cannava is a board member for the Municipal Forum of New York and Community Preservation Corporation. He maintains his Series 7, 63, 24, and 53 security license registrations.

Peggy DaSilva is the chief executive officer of PIMCO Prime Real Estate LLC. Based in New York, she has more than 30 years of experience in real estate investment and prior to this role, she was head of asset management for PIMCO Prime Real Estate LLC and was 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. She holds an MBA in finance from Columbia Business School and she graduated cum laude from Wellesley College.  

With over 20 years of real estate experience, Adriana de Alcantara joined Hines in January 2020. Previously, she was managing director, senior portfolio manager, with Nuveen Real Estate, where she was the lead portfolio manager for both the TIAA-CREF Real Property Fund LP, a core sector-diversified fund, targeting office, retail, multifamily and industrial assets and the New York City Property Fund, a value-add and opportunistic real estate fund investing in New York City real estate.

She served other lead roles at TIAA, as well as leadership roles at Lehman Brothers Global Real Estate Group and O’Connor Capital Partners. De Alcantara has the European designation of certified financial analyst and is a certified financial planner. She is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, German, and French.

Dylan J. Delaune has more than 25 years of experience in finance and operational management, and has worked in the storage industry since 2004, specializing in operations, acquisitions, and asset development. Delaune is responsible for directing company operations for Storage Post’s facilities and the corporate management company. He also reviews and manages asset performance and executes all activities in site selection, negotiation, purchase, and entitlement of multi-story, climate-controlled self-storage facilities to enhance Storage Post’s growth plan. He formulates detailed feasibility analysis of each acquisition opportunity and carefully monitors operational processes to ensure scalability and efficacy. He manages the sourcing and underwriting of self-storage acquisitions.

Jeffrey F. DiModica, CFA, has been 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 and serving, which have a  collective $28 billion of assets under management. From 1993 to 2014, DiModica served in various investment banking roles at Royal  Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Merrill Lynch. DiModica began his career in the Merchant and Investment Banking Group of the Commercial Real Estate Department at  Chemical Bank from 1989 to 1991. 

DiModica is a member of YPO (Young Presidents Organization) and serves  on the Miami Advisory Board of the Posse Foundation, an organization that identifies,  recruits and trains individuals with extraordinary leadership potential who are awarded  full-tuition scholarships. DiModica was also the founding president of  www.Mitoaction.org, a support, education and advocacy group for families affected by  Mitochondrial Disease. DiModica is honored to be ranked in Commercial Observer’s “50 Most Important Figures of Commercial Real Estate Finance” list for the last eight years, ranking  in the top 10 the past five years. 

Samantha Rudin joined Rudin in 2007. As of January 2024, Samantha became co-CEO with her brother, Michael Rudin. She will continue to oversee Rudin’s 600 employees, the expansive multifamily portfolio and the firm’s design, marketing, and human resources functions. She also leads Rudin’s DEIA initiatives and Corporate Social Responsibility efforts. Rudin has played a lead role in the development of 130 West 12th Street, The Greenwich Lane, and the repositioning of 41 Madison, 80 Pine Street, and 3 Times Square.

Rudin serves on the boards of the Rudin Family foundations, as well as the boards of Roundabout Theatre Company, Subject Matter, the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation, and the Association for a Better New York, where she serves as the Chair of ABNY Women. She is a proud New Yorker and a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Eric Enderlin has served as president of HDC since October 2016, where he is tasked with leading the nation’s largest municipal Housing Finance Agency towards furthering the administration’s goals to create and preserve affordable housing and rehabilitate the city's public housing stock. Enderlin brings more than 20 years of experience in public policy and affordable housing to HDC. Prior to joining HDC, he served as Deputy Commissioner for Development and Special Advisor at the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). Previously, Enderlin was Assistant Director for Asset Management and Private Market Operations at NYCHA; worked as a consultant with the Louis Berger Group; and served as Principal Planner and land use mediator with the New Jersey Council on Affordable Housing (NJ COAH).

Since the beginning of Marcella Fasulo’s real estate career in 2005, she has worked on some of New York’s and the United States’ highest profile transactions, representing both domestic and international clients. Along with her team, Fasulo has secured equity for, or advised on the sale of, $90 billion of asset sales to offshore investors. She has participated in the sale, JV or recapitalization of approximately $200 billion overall. Fasulo joined the Newmark platform in 2023, based in New York City. Fasulo’s transaction experience spans from trophy and boutique assets in New York City to trophy and large portfolio multifamily assets to some of NYC’s largest development sites, and large national industrial portfolios. She has sourced dozens of first time to US or first time to asset class buyers. She continues to serve as a trusted advisor to offshore institutional and high net worth clients as they expand their acquisitions efforts.

Fasulo and her team were previously at Cushman and Wakefield for nearly seven years, where she was most recently a vice chairman. Fasulo began her real estate career at CBRE on the New York City Institutional Sales Group, where she was most recently a senior vice president and served for a combined decade. Fasulo was named “40 Under 40” by Crain’s New York in 2018. She is on the board of advisors for the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate, as well as the board of advisors of LDS, a Nordic Bond Fund. She is on the membership committee at WX. She was named one of Bisnow’s Leading Women in Real Estate as well as GlobeSt’s Women of Influence.

MaryAnne Gilmartin is the founder and chief executive officer of MAG Partners, a real estate development company she founded in 2018. Gilmartin previously served as President and CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies, where she oversaw a period of game-changing ground-up development and managed its multi-million square foot residential, commercial and retail portfolio. Gilmartin also served as chair of the board of directors and interim chief executive officer of Mack-Cali Realty Corporation.

Gilmartin is a civic leader in the New York metropolitan area, serving as Chair Emeritus of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, member of the Board of Trustees of The Brooklyn Academy of Music, member of the New York Public Radio Board of Trustees, and a member of the Executive Committee and Board of Governors of The Real Estate Board of New York.  At Columbia University, Gilmartin is part of the Industry Advisory Board of the MS Real Estate Development Program as well as a member of the real estate advisory board in the Center for AI in Business Analytics and FinTech.  In addition to her civic and industry board service, Gilmartin was appointed a member of the board of directors of the global investment banking firm Jefferies Group LLC in 2014. 

Todd A. Gomez is the North Region market executive for Community Development Banking (CDB) at Bank of America.  He is responsible for managing a $4.5B loan and investment portfolio and leading a team focused on providing a broad range of debt and equity financing solutions to developers of affordable multifamily housing in the Northeast and Midwest. Gomez joined CDB in 2008 from Bank of America Securities where he was managing director of the Affordable Housing Finance Group.  In his prior position, Gomez led a team responsible for providing investment banking and advisory services to residential developers, real estate management companies and owner/operators of affordable housing throughout the US. Prior to joining BAS in 2004, Gomez served as the chief financial officer of the Chicago Housing Authority where he was responsible for all financing, cash management, accounting, risk management, and financial reporting activity of the Authority.  In addition, Gomez had responsibility for managing the Authority’s $1.5B annual budget.

Gomez worked for over 13 years in affordable housing finance and corporate banking prior to joining the CHA in 2000. Gomez specialized in financing multifamily and single-family loan programs through state and local HFAs, as well as acquisition, rehabilitation, portfolio restructuring and program development for real estate developers throughout the US. He has experience in structuring all types of taxable and tax-exempt multifamily financing transactions including: Section 8, FHA-insured, privately-insured, unenhanced and non-rated. Gomez is a member of the Urban Land Institute and the Real Estate Executive Council.  He currently serves on the board of directors of Enterprise Community Partners NY (Co-Chair), NYU Schack Institute for Real Estate, New York Housing Conference, Dartmouth Center for Social Impact, EL Education (Finance Chair) and New Jersey Future (Finance Chair).  

Jackie Hamilton serves as global co-head of the real estate principal investments group within Macquarie Capital, managing the balance sheet’s global deployment across both debt and equity opportunities. Prior to joining Macquarie in 2011, Hamilton spent two years at private equity fund manager Pacific Coast Capital Partners, focusing on high-yield senior debt and equity originations, and ten years at Lehman Brothers, investing equity and debt on behalf of private equity vehicles and the firm’s balance sheet. Hamilton started her career as an asset manager at Hatfield Philips in Atlanta, GA, responsible for debt portfolios on behalf of Lehman Brothers. Hamilton also serves on the Macquarie Social Impact Investment Committee and the board of Win Partners.

Timothy Johnson is the global head of Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies, based in New York. Johnson is responsible for overseeing Blackstone’s commercial and residential real estate debt investment strategies and is also a member of the firm’s real estate investment committee.

Before joining Blackstone in 2011, Johnson was a co-founder of BroadPeak Funding, a boutique commercial real estate finance company based in Los Angeles. Prior to founding BroadPeak, Johnson was a vice president in the Lehman Brothers Global Commercial Real Estate Group where he worked from 2002-2008.

Bryan Kelly leads the Gotham Development division, including oversight of the acquisition process, entitlements and approvals, design, deal structuring, capital raising, and marketing strategy. During Kelly’s tenure with Gotham, the firm has grown its development portfolio and pipeline by over 5,000 units and upwards of five-million square feet and has closed on over $2 billion in financing, with another $1 billion in the pipeline. He has led Gotham to win several major public-private RFP designations including Gotham Point, a 1,132-unit mixed-income project in Long Island City, Queens, and Monitor Point, a 900-unit mixed-income project in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in partnership with the MTA. He has also achieved successful rezonings and land use entitlements for multiple projects including Broome Street Development, 130 St Felix, and the Innovative Urban Village. Kelly is on the Executive Committee of the New York Housing Conference, the Advisory Board of the NYU Furman Center and the ULI New York Advisory Board.

James D. Kuhn is president and shareholder in Newmark. In his role, Kuhn helps cross-sell all brokerage activity for leasing, investment sales, and debt and equity placement, and maximizes the collaboration of brokerage functions with valuation, global corporate services, property management, and all related service and specialty practice groups. Kuhn also founded and leads the H.U.G.S Practice (Hospitals, Universities, Government, and Schools) along with the Landlord Rep Group.

Kuhn serves as the chairman of the advisory board of New York University's Schack Institute of Real Estate. In 2008, he established the James and Marjorie Kuhn Program to Foster Diversity in Real Estate in New York City. At Syracuse, he endowed the James D. Kuhn Real Estate Center at the Whitman School of Management and named the Kuhn Gameday Lounge. Kuhn has been a member of the Syracuse Board of Trustees for 17 years and acted as head of facilities as well as the athletics committee. He is also a chairman of the advisory board for the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center.

Thomas Lee serves as chief investment officer of TCC. His responsibilities include outlining the firm’s global investment strategy and managing strategic deployment of capital. He also oversees TCC’s Capital Markets Group and has responsibility for the firm’s capitalization strategy around securing debt and equity to support the joint-venture activity of TCC’s development and investment business globally. He serves on TCC’s Executive Committee and Investment Committee.

Lee previously worked at Boston Properties (New York, NY) and with TCC’s Houston office, where he was responsible for identifying, analyzing and originating ground-up development and value-add investment opportunities. Prior to TCC, he worked for Barclays Capital in the High Yield and Distressed Credit Group. 

Harrison T. LeFrak, Esq.  is a member of the New York Bar and a licensed real estate broker. He is vice chairman of LeFrak, a privately owned firm engaged in the ownership, management, and development of real property, the exploration and production of energy, and investments in venture capital, private equity and securities.

In addition, LeFrak is a member of the Board of Overseers of the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University, a member of the North American Advisory Board of Citi Private Bank and a Trustee of The New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Elliot Markus is a Vice President in the Real Estate Private Credit group at Cerberus Capital Management. Mr. Markus is responsible for sourcing, negotiating and structuring domestic real estate debt transactions, banking & warehouse relationships and real estate securities investments.

Prior to joining Cerberus in 2022, Mr. Markus spent four years at Mack Real Estate Credit Strategies in both their New York and Los Angeles offices where he sourced, negotiated and closed loans across the United States. Mr. Markus began his career at Cantor Fitzgerald in their real estate finance business. Mr. Markus graduated from Emory University with degrees in Economics and Russian & Eastern European Studies. Mr. Markus is also involved in Boys Hope Girls Hope of New York where he mentors high school students navigating the college application and admissions process.

John McCarthy is the head of US Unlisted Real Estate at Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM). He is responsible for overseeing the investment and asset management activities of NBIM’s US real estate business. Based in New York, he has been with NBIM since the founding of the US real estate group. Before joining NBIM, he had several positions with Clarion Partners, LLC  and Weitzman Real Estate Consultants, LLC. McCarthy is an active participant with the Urban Land Institute and serves on the board of directors for the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE).

As president of the Community Preservation Corporation, Sadie McKeown leads the development and implementation of CPC’s growth strategy and oversees the company’s construction lending, initiatives, and its equity and impact investing platforms. McKeown brings an eye toward collective solutions to addressing the capital challenges facing disinvested communities. Having harnessed dozens of municipal tools and subsidy programs to drive affordable, sustainable multifamily development, McKeown has developed a passion and skill for aligning private resources and government priorities for impact and change.

McKeown is a leader in the sustainable building movement and has been a fierce advocate for transitioning real estate to clean energy. McKeown built and continues to lead CPC’s sustainability platform, focused on driving higher performance, resilient, healthier housing and creating economic opportunity in disadvantaged communities. This includes leading CPC Climate Capital, a subsidiary deploying $2.4 billion in federal funding to finance carbon reducing improvements to multifamily housing nationwide.

Michael Neuman oversees transactions for all asset types and sectors within the United States for Ivanhoé Cambridge, CDPQ’s, real estate portfolio. Prior to 2024, Neuman served as head, Industrial and Residential, United States and Latin America, a role he has held since 2022.

In this capacity, he managed Ivanhoé Cambridge’s existing platforms in the United States and investment diversification into new geographies and alternative asset classes such as self-storage and manufactured housing. Neuman has worked in investing and real estate for nearly 15 years. Before joining Ivanhoé Cambridge in 2014, he spent five years at Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield as a senior investment and asset manager for the office and hotels division.

Marc Norman is the founder of consulting firm Ideas and Action, the Larry & Klara Silverstein Chair in Real Estate Development & Investment, and Associate Dean of the Schack Institute of Real Estate at the NYU. Trained as an urban planner, he has worked in the field of community development and finance for over 25 years. Previous to his current positions, he has held leadership positions at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business as Faculty Director of the Weiser Center for Real Estate, Duvernay+Brooks, LLC as Managing Director, Deutsche Bank as Vice President in the Community Development Finance Group and led Upstate, A Center for Design, Research and Real Estate at Syracuse University. Norman has worked collaboratively to develop or finance over 2,000 units totaling more than $400 million in total development costs.

Norman works nationwide with cities, for profit and non-profit projects related to economics, wealth building and equitable development. He also engages in numerous public service and academic service activities. Since 1994, he has served as a board member for numerous non-profit, governmental and community organizations addressing issues of affordable housing and design, currently serving on the boards of New York City's Housing Development Corporation, the Governor's Island Trust and the Center for Architecture.  Formerly he served on the boards of MASS Design Group, CAMBA Housing Ventures, and served as Chair for the Federal Reserve’s Community Advisory Council.

Jonathan “JJ” Ofer is the chief executive officer of Global Holdings Management Group (US). His experience covers acquisitions, development and asset management, with a focus on office, residential and hotels. In recent years, Global Holdings’ notable projects include the establishment of the Lore Hotel Group,  which includes award winning hotels across London, Amsterdam and Washington, DC, the repositioning and placemaking of the office building, Nomad Tower, as well as the expansion of the residential portfolio of over 1000 apartments including Anagram Nomad (10 East 10th Street), Anagram Columbus Circle (1 West 60th Street), and The Novus in Durham, North Carolina. Ofer is a member of the Partnership for New York City, the Real Estate Roundtable, and Dartmouth College’s President's Leadership Council.

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.

Prior to joining CREFC as executive director in 2016, Lisa Pendergast was CREFC’s 2010/2011 president and a member of CREFC’s Board of Governors for over nine years. Pendergast has 30 years of industry experience in the structured-finance real estate markets. She has been a top-ranked research analyst in the highly competitive Institutional Investor All-American Fixed-Income Research Team and Orion surveys in the CMBS category. Prior to CREFC, Pendergast was employed by Jefferies LLC as a managing director, where she was head of CMBS Strategy and Risk in the Fixed Income Division’s MBS/ABS/CMBS Group. Before joining Jefferies, Pendergast was a managing director in the Fixed-Income Strategies Group at Greenwich Capital/Royal Bank of Scotland, where she worked for eight years. Pendergast enjoys golfing and long-distance road biking, and spending time on the beaches of Rhode Island with family and friends.

Scott Rechler is the chief executive officer and chairman of RXR, a private equity real estate investor, operator, and developer headquartered in New York City. Before starting RXR, Rechler served as the chair and CEO of Reckson Associates, which he helped take public in 1995. Rechler also served on the board of American Campus Communities, the largest student housing company in the United States, from 2004 - 2008. Rechler served as the chair of the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit focused on the quality of life and economic competitiveness of the tri-state area, from 2017 to 2023. He served on the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority from 2017 to 2019 and vice chairman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from 2011 to 2016.

Rechler currently serves as trustee and vice chair of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum and chair of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research. He is a member of the Real Estate Board of New York, the Real Estate Roundtable, and the NYU Real Estate Institute Advisory Committee. In addition, he is a board member for Northwell Health, the Hospital for Special Surgery, and NYU.

Samantha Rotchford is a Managing Director on the Real Estate Credit team at BDT & MSD Partners, where she helps lead the strategy, investments, and operations of the team. She joined the firm in 2020 from Starwood Property Trust, where she was a Senior Vice President. Prior to that, she was a Financial Analyst at Savills. Samantha is the Chairwoman-Elect of the Alternative Lenders and High Yield Investors forum for the CRE Finance Council (CREFC). Additionally, she co-runs the Women’s Network at BDT & MSD and is on the Leadership Council for Special Olympics New York. Samantha earned a B.S. in Finance with a Minor in Mathematics from Fairfield University.

As co-executive chairman of Rudin, William C. Rudin oversees the Rudin real estate portfolio, which includes 14 office towers spanning over 10 million square feet of space, 18 luxury apartment buildings, and developed The Greenwich Lane, a world-class residential project, all located in New York City.

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

Tom Rugg is a vice chairman and co-head of US Large Loans in Debt & Structured Finance at CBRE focusing on institutional debt advisory, with specific expertise in originating, pricing, negotiating, structuring, syndicating, and securitizing large commercial real estate finance transactions. Rugg joined CBRE in December 2023 and brings over 20 years of large loan and capital markets experience.  Since 2016, the CBRE Large Loan team has arranged nearly $50 billion in fixed and floating-rate financing transactions on large single assets and portfolios.

Throughout his career, Rugg has originated commercial real estate loans for institutional clients throughout the United States, spanning all property types, and has syndicated over $25 billion of fixed and floating-rate subordinate debt to capital providers both domestic and international, including debt funds, mortgage REITs, banks, money managers, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and hedge funds. Prior to CBRE, Rugg was a managing director at Deutsche Bank where he spent over 12 years within the commercial real estate group with responsibilities related to large loan origination, subordinate debt distribution, and warehouse facilities.  Prior to Deutsche Bank, Rugg held senior capital markets roles at Wells Fargo Bank and Wachovia Securities.

Neha Santiago is head of real estate private credit and managing director at 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 real estate investing career in 2003 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 is a member of the Cornell University Dyson Advisory Council.

Larry A. Silverstein is the founder and Chairman of Silverstein Properties, a Manhattan-based real estate development and investment firm that has developed, owned and managed over 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 consecutive years. In July 2001, Mr. 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 $3.2 billion, only to see it destroyed in terrorist attacks seven weeks later on September 11, 2001. He has spent the last 23 years rebuilding the office component of the World Trade Center site, a $26 billion project that will consume the balance of his working life.

A 1952 graduate of New York University, Mr. Silverstein served as Vice Chairman of the NYU Board of Trustees, where he continues to serve as member of the Board of Trustees of the New York University Langone Medical Center. He is the Founder and Chairman emeritus of the advisory board of the NYU Real Estate Institute. As a Professor of Real Estate, his “Silverstein Workshop” became one of the most attended and informative educational sources for learning real estate development and investment analysis.

Mr. Silverstein contributes his time and resources to organizations that are dedicated to higher education and medical research, meeting humanitarian needs and supporting the arts. Mr. Silverstein currently serves as a board member of the New York Philharmonic. He is a classical music enthusiast, a passionate yachtsman and a dedicated New Yorker. Larry and Klara Silverstein have been married for 68 years and have three children and one son-in-law, three of whom are executives at Silverstein Properties, and they also have eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

David Todd is a managing director in Brookfield’s Real Estate Group, as well as the chief executive officer of Maymont Homes, Brookfield’s single-family rental business. In this role, he is responsible for equity and debt investments, portfolio management, and operations.

Before his current position, Todd focused on investment opportunities for the real estate M&A team. Prior to joining Brookfield in 2017, Todd held real estate acquisition, development and asset management roles after positions as a management consultant and computer programmer.

Miriam Wheeler is head of the Global Real Estate Financing Group in Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs. She is a member of the Firmwide Capital Committee. Previously, Wheeler worked in fixed income, currency, and commodities in mortgage sales. She joined Goldman Sachs in 2005 as an analyst, and was named managing director in 2015 and partner in 2018.

Wheeler serves on the board of the New York Restoration Project, an organization responsible for  bringing community gardens, parks, and green  space to New York. She also serves on the  Leadership Council for the East Harlem Tutorial Program.

Stephanie Wright is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Finance at the Schack Institute of Real Estate, where she is also Program Coordinator for the Institute's Finance & Investment curriculum. She brings 15 years of experience with a particular focus in real estate private equity. Her career has spanned real estate acquisitions, development, capital markets, and asset management, across both conventional and impact products. Most recently, she was Investment Vice President at PGIM Real Estate where she handled the execution of $1.5 billion in transactions with a particular focus on alternative assets and special situations. Previously, she was responsible for managing all aspects of PGIM’s ground-up construction east of the Mississippi, including joint venture negotiations, plan & cost reviews, environmental diligence, and construction monitoring for $20 billion of multifamily and industrial developments. Prior to PGIM, Stephanie was a member of Brookfield's Private Funds Practice where she project-managed the launch of the firm's $7 billion global infrastructure fund, $1.25 billion real estate finance fund, and $1 billion core-plus office club vehicle. Stephanie began her career in impact investing with Jonathan Rose Companies. She holds an M.B.A. with Dean's Honors and Distinction from Columbia University, a B.A. with honors in English from Yale University, and a Certificate in Real Estate Finance & Investment from NYU. She has received industry acknowledgments from groups including WX, PREA, the Women’s Bond Club of New York, and Columbia University’s Paul Milstein Center. She is a member of ULI and the Columbia Real Estate Circle. In her free time, she enjoys exploring the world with her kids and husband, as well as interior design, classical music (she is a violinist and singer), tennis, skiing, and golfing poorly.