Steve Azar is a co-founder and principal at Ambient, with responsibilities for acquisitions, fundraising and company operations. Over a 13-year career in real estate, Azar has amassed a wide skill set, with experience in portfolio management, acquisitions and dispositions, asset management and capital markets. Prior to Ambient, he was a senior vice president and co-portfolio manager of Stockbridge Capital Group's supply chain-oriented industrial fund, which focused on the IOS asset class. Before that, Azar acted as global head of real estate for XPO Logistics. He has a B.A. in finance from Miami University and is a CFA Charterholder.

Gary has been an economic developer since 1996, both private and public. He is a Certified Economic Developer through the International Economic Development Council. He is the Vice President of Economic Development for Greater Spokane Incorporated where he leads the economic development team at GSI and works with economic development partners throughout the region to grow and diversify the Spokane regional economy.

Tom Barbera is the CEO of Industrial Outdoor Ventures (IOV). Barbera is a proven entrepreneur with over 30 years of industrial real estate experience, all of which has been focused on supply chain-advantaged real estate. Barbera has extensive experience working with industrial properties near airports, intermodal rail facilities, ocean ports and urban infill areas. He started his career in brokerage in 1993 and as broker executed over seven million square feet in transactions with a total value in excess of $300 million. As a principal investor since 2006, Barbera has acquired or developed over $1 billion in industrial real estate assets. He has direct experience in property and construction management, acquisitions, development, equity and debt financing and joint venture formation.

Todd is a senior vice president and shareholder at Kidder Mathews. He has been a commercial broker for 31 years and has been with the firm since 2001. Battison’s specialty is leasing and investment sales of commercial office properties in the Greater Seattle marketplace and throughout Puget Sound. He has leased or sold over 3.3 million square feet of office space during his career.

Named “Executive of the Year” in 2023 by the Portland Business Journal, Evan brings the juice, passion and heart to the projects and people he works with every day. He is a Partner at Pacific NW Properties, a Beaverton, Oregon based commercial real estate development, investment and property management firm, where he oversees all acquisitions, dispositions, leasing, development site selection, and marketing, amongst other focus areas. Beyond his day-to-day responsibilities, Evan volunteers his time with numerous charitable organizations and sits on several boards, including NAIOP, Westside Economic Alliance and Revitalize Portland Coalition. Under Evan’s leadership as President in 2022, NAIOP Oregon was honored with the two biggest awards in North America: “National Chapter of the Year,” as well as “National President of the Year.”

Emily Blaylock started her career in accounting, followed by various strategic positions in commercial banking for over 17 years. She founded her company, Untamed Equity, LLC, to specialize in monetizing TIF (Tax Increment Financing) and provide developers upfront equity to continue economic development in communities throughout the U.S. As an entrepreneur she is paving the way to educate and help developers and municipalities capitalize on the benefits of TIF.

Lucas Borges is a senior director in the Chicago office of JLL Capital Markets, Americas. He re-joined JLL as part of the HFF acquisition with extensive experience in commercial real estate. He specializes in arranging asset-level financing, subordinate debt, and joint venture equity on behalf of institutional and private owners of all investment properties across the U.S. Prior to debt advisory, he focused on the disposition and recapitalization of investment properties located in Chicago and throughout the Midwest. Over the course of his career, he has been directly involved in more than $5 billion in commercial real estate transactions. Borges earned his undergraduate degree in finance and is fluent in English, Italian and Portuguese.

Over the past 4 decades, Jim has successfully built and/or managed 3 of the 4 largest Commercial Real Estate companies in the Puget Sound region. Jim is the President | Principal of Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services for the state of Washington. Lee & Associates is the nation's largest broker-owned and operated organization with 45 years of success, in 65 offices and staffed with over 1,500 commercial real estate professionals. In his role as President, Jim is building and leading Lee & Associates regional growth and development with 45 brokers servicing the Puget Sound region out of offices in Seattle, Tacoma, & Bellevue. Prior to his engagement with Lee & Associates, Jim spent 14 years as CBRE’s Senior Managing Director in the greater Puget Sound area. In that capacity, he led the company's growth to become the region's largest Commercial Real Estate services team, comprised of over 1,800 professionals, delivering a full range of services to owners and users of commercial real estate and reaching annual revenue exceeding $200 Million. A lifelong Seattle area resident and graduate of the University of Washington, Jim brings more than 40 years of experience and local community involvement to the commercial real estate services business.

Michael Caprile has over 45 ears of investment sales experience within the commercial real estate profession. Since 1984, he and his team concluded transactions with an aggregate consideration in excess of $110 billion nationwide. Caprile specializes in the acquisition and disposition of institutional industrial and transportation infrastructure related investment assets. Over the past 7 years, he has raised capital in excess of $8 billion for joint venture, new development and new platform initiatives. With an in-depth understanding of complex financing strategies and an uncanny perception of commercial real estate, its cycles, trends and participants, Caprile and his team have been able to consummate major investment transactions for some of the highest profile institutional owners of real estate on both a regional and national level. Caprile is married and lives with his wife, Linda and two sons, Jimmy and Jac, in Oak Park, Illinois. He is a founding member of CBRE National Partners, a collaborative national partnership formed in 2010 that focuses exclusively on industrial and logistics capital markets.

Nathaalie Carey is the Senior Vice President, HR at Prologis, the leader in logistics real estate. Her responsibilities include talent acquisition, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB), and HR operations modernization through data science and technology.

Matt Carroll is a driven leader with fifteen years of international business experience in logistics and supply chain. He is multilingual, speaks fluently in Spanish and German, while having an in-depth understanding of the complex dynamics of supply chain management, contract negotiations and thought leadership after spending more than a decade managing operations in China, Europe, Australia, Canada and the U.S. His understanding of global business environments, monetary impacts, and rules of engagement for real estate integration for successful business results benefit the clients he works with. Carroll is a graduate of Purdue University, where he played NCAA basketball. Matt was a four-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree, the recipient of the Distinguished Scholar-Athlete award for outstanding academic achievements, and the Ward Lambert academic award.

Cassie Catania-Hsu is the Managing Director and Market Leader of CBRE in Las Vegas, NV. Cassie oversees all CBRE Advisory lines of business for the Las Vegas valley, including Advisory & Transaction Services, Capital Markets, Debt & Structured Finance, Property Management, and Valuation & Advisory Services. A nearly 30-year resident of Las Vegas, she has more than a decade of experience in local commercial real estate. Ms. Catania-Hsu has a Bachelor of Science in Real Estate from the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), a Commercial Real Estate Certification from the UNLV LIED Center for Real Estate and is a graduate of the 2018 Developing Leaders Institute from NAIOP Southern Nevada. Ms. Catania-Hsu also serves on the NAIOP Southern Nevada Board of Directors and CREW Las Vegas Board of Directors. 

Janice Cavaliere is a principal, design director, and global leader of Gensler’s Brand Design practice, focused on developing experiences and telling stories that make meaningful connections between people and places. Her work spans a wide range of projects including strategy, brand positioning, corporate identities, communications, websites, retail experiences, and branded workspaces for clients globally.

Jackie Chapman is the director of people at Trammell Crow Company (TCC). TCC provides best-in-class development services to real estate investors, owners and occupiers, with services and solutions for nearly every product type. In her role, Chapman is a strategic partner in developing workforce strategy; employee engagement; total rewards; diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI); employee relations; organizational change; talent management; recruiting; and employee retention.

Candice Chevaillier has been selling commercial real estate investment property in the Seattle market for over 20 years. She joined Lee & Associates as a Principal to spearhead the growth of their Multifamily practice and has built a stellar team of investment brokers on her direct team. Her reputation in the marketplace is sterling for her work ethic, industry leadership, and ability to create win/wins for clients on both sides of the negotiating table. In 2023, Candice was awarded the Lee & Associates Circle of Excellence 2023 for Multifamily and the Globe Street 2023 Real Estate Forum Women of Influence in Investment Sales awards. Candice has served on the Board of Directors for the Commercial Broker’s Association (CBA) and the Rental Housing Association (RHA) and is active in the local Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) Institute and the Commercial Real Estate Women’s (CREW) network.

Barbara Corcoran’s credits include straight Ds in high school and college and 20 jobs by the time she turned 23. It was her next job that would make her one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country: She borrowed $1,000 and quit her job as a waitress to start a tiny real estate company in New York City. Over the next 25 years, Barbara would parlay that $1,000 loan into a $5 billion real estate business, building the largest and best-known brand in the business. Corcoran is the author of the best seller “Shark Tales: How I Turned $1,000 into a Billion Dollar Business!” and host of top business podcast “Business Unusual with Barbara Corcoran.” Corcoran has been an investor/Shark for the past fourteen seasons on ABC’s four-time Emmy award-winning show, Shark Tank, investing in over 80 businesses to date.

Heidi Creighton is the National Head of Sustainability for Skanska USA Commercial Development. As a passionate advocate and pioneer in the green building industry, Creighton serves as a thought leader and strategic driver of all initiatives and policies related to sustainability across the company’s U.S. portfolio. She is charged with identifying solutions that improve asset performance, energy management, community engagement and user experience while furthering Skanska USA Commercial Development’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy.

McKenzie Darr has been involved in the development of multifamily properties with a total value in excess of $500 million. She has worked throughout the Western U.S. and specializes in entitlements. She has co-chaired the NAIOP Washington State Government Affairs Committee for the past three years, where she has led successful efforts to oppose rent control and an increase to the real estate excise tax. She is on the executive committee for the Partnership for Affordable Housing, an organization aimed at advancing policies to address our housing crisis, and was formerly on the University of Washington Runstad Department of Real Estate Advisory Board and the Washington State Department of Commerce Multifamily Tax Exemption Advisory Committee. She has a Master of Urban Planning and MS in Real Estate from the University of Washington.

Jennifer Emrick is the Global Construction Sustainability Manager at Prologis where she leads creation and implementation of tools, policies, and processes that advance Prologis’s global sustainability goals for decarbonization and green building ratings. She is responsible for a global carbon accounting program that will provide whole-building lifecycle analysis data to strategize and report total carbon reduction efforts to reach Net Zero across the value chain by 2040. She also manages execution of Prologis’s global mandate to design all new construction to green building certification standards where recognized sustainability rating systems are available. Emrick is a certified LEED AP BD+C and serves on the USGBC LEED v5 Design + Construction Consensus Committee.

With over 20 years at Eastdil Secured, Jason Flynn oversees the company’s Pacific Northwest business, including $50 billion in regional sale and financing transactions in the past 10 years. Flynn is originally from the Seattle area and a graduate of Georgetown University.

Robert Gerard has more than 15 years of performance-based design experience in countries around the world, bringing an international perspective to the U.S. regulatory environment, having lived and worked in the United States, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. His work includes major mixed-use buildings, hotels, resort casinos, transportation centers, museums, high-rises, and office buildings. His expertise with structural fire engineering and fire performance and safety in mass timber structures has made him an authority on fire safety in mass timber buildings.

Margaret Gregg is a project architect at KSS, currently working on an 850,000-square-foot multistory industrial, integrated-use project in Queens, New York. She has been instrumental in several research initiatives while at KSS. This research has focused on food production, storage, distribution, and accessibility in an urban context. Over the past several years she has cultivated expertise in industrial design; notably multistory mixed-use development in urban areas where she can influence the sensitivity to context and responsible intervention of the built environment.

Edward Griffin is the CEO of Griffin Partners, leading the company’s strategic direction, guiding investment and development practices, and day-to-day operations. He has 30 years of commercial real estate experience, including extensive skills in debt and equity financing, valuation, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate finance. Griffin has conducted business in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, and has significant experience in negotiating and executing large, complex transactions which has contributed to the successful investment track record of Griffin Partners comprising more than $1.8 billion.

Chad Griffiths has been an industrial real estate broker since 2005 and an investor since 2014. As a member of a global CRE company and a partner with his local firm, Griffiths has completed over 1,000 deals with clients ranging from small companies to large institutional owners. Over his career he’s earned SIOR and CCIM designations and an MBA. He is the host of the Industrial Real Estate Podcast and has interviewed over 100 industry experts from all over the world.

Loni L. Hinton is with Seyfarth Shaw LLP in San Francisco, California. She is a construction and design attorney and has significant experience representing owners and developers with a variety of public and private projects, such as high-rise office buildings, retail spaces, hotels, condominiums and infrastructure projects. Hinton is a member of NAIOP San Francisco Bay Area’s Government Affairs Committee. She is licensed to practice law in Alaska, Washington, California and Idaho and received her J.D., cum laude, from Seattle University School of Law. 

Keith Honig is Senior Managing Director and Head of Commercial Mortgage Lending for Pacific Life Investments, overseeing commercial mortgage loan investments for Pacific Life Insurance Company. Prior to joining Pacific Life in 2018, Honig held various positions with AIG Investments and its predecessor, SunAmerica Inc. Honig was Managing Director and the Head of Commercial Mortgage Lending for AIG Investments and President of AIG Mortgage Capital, LLC. He was the Head of Loan Administration for AIG Investments and SunAmerica Inc. which included responsibility for loan servicing, asset management and portfolio management. Honig is a Certified Public Accountant and an attorney and previously practiced accounting as a manager with the accounting firm of KPMG, performing audit and tax services. He practiced as an attorney with the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, focusing on real estate lending, foreclosures and bankruptcy. Honig serves on the CREFC Membership Committee, is a past chair of the CREFC Portfolio Lenders Forum and served on the CREFC Policy Committee.

Todd Huebsch has been working in the software industry for over 25 years, focusing on the commercial real estate industry. He started his career working in the finance department of a real estate development company based in Boulder, Colorado. Next, he worked as a consultant for a software firm, helping many of the largest real estate and construction firms in North America implement enterprise ERP systems. Before joining Yardi where Huebsch is Vice President, Commercial Real Estate, he spent his career at software companies including JD Edwards, SAP, PeopleSoft and Oracle. He had various roles at these companies, with positions in consulting, pre-sales, sales and management. Huebsch spends his time helping real estate organizations understand how technology, and best practices can help them reduce costs and streamline operations. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado, Boulder, with a B.S. in finance, and holds a master’s degree in information technology from the University of Colorado, Denver.

Josh Hullum serves as executive director of construction management for Affinius Capital. He is responsible for overseeing the construction and development of projects throughout greater North America. Prior to joining Affinius Capital, Hullum was a senior project manager with DPR Construction, a national general contractor focusing on tech, healthcare, office and hospitality. Hullum was responsible for expanding company operations into the San Antonio area, establishing and managing a local business unit. He was accountable for growing the company’s strategic presence in the area along with ensuring the health and success of each project. He received a bachelor’s degree in leadership and development and a masters in construction management from Texas A&M University.

A-P Hurd is the president of SkipStone, a consulting firm that provides real estate and planning services to private and public clients. She is the former president of Touchstone, a real estate development company that built nearly three million square feet of office, retail, hotel and residential space between 2007 and 2017, and won the NAIOP Developer of the Year award in 2016. Since founding SkipStone in 2017, Hurd has supported clients includng the City of San Jose, helping them negotiate a development agreement with Google and Lendlease for seven million square feet of office and 6,000 units of housing, and has helped Community Roots Housing capitalize and develop the first mass timber workforce housing project in the country. Hurd is a director on several corporate and nonprofit boards and is the incoming chair of the Community Development Roundtable (CDRT). She taught for nine years at the Runstad Department of Real Estate at the University of Washington, is the author of “The Carbon Efficient City,” and speaks and writes nationally and internationally about urban economics, transit and housing.

Rock Irvin is the Chief Commercial Officer of SupplierGATEWAY. Prior to his current role, he acquired and operated two data-driven marketing solutions companies as CEO. He also been the head of data products for leading technology PE firm, Vista Equity Partners, and co-founded the data products team at Cars.com, growing their data business revenue by 20x during his tenure. Irvin is based in Chicago and is an alumnus of Howard University and University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Ermengarde Jabir PhD is a Senior Economist at Moody’s Analytics, specializing in commercial real estate. Her research interests include the intersection of REITs and the macroeconomy and she has been published in academic journals as well as industry publications. Prior to joining Moody’s Analytics, she held positions in various government agencies as well as in the private sector.

Anita Jeerage leads the sustainability department, which supports property management, engineering and development teams in implementing high-performance building strategies related to decarbonization, resource management and health and wellness. In addition, she leads Unico’s cross-functional ESG committee, which guides ESG policy and initiatives throughout the real estate life cycle. Jeerage brings more than fifteen years of green building consulting and project management experience to Unico.

Jean Kane is the former CEO of Colliers International | Minneapolis St. Paul and an alumna of the Harvard University Leading a Real Estate Company program. She joined NAIOP in 1992 and served as the chairman of NAIOP’s Corporate Board of Directors in 2014. She is currently vice chair of the NAIOP Research Foundation Trustees.

Ajey Kaushal is a senior associate at JLL Spark, responsible for sourcing, evaluating, investing, and scaling early-stage PropTech startups. Prior to joining JLL Spark, he held roles across strategy, tech investing, commercial real estate, and management consulting, most recently serving as chief of staff at Anderson Holdings and as an investment associate at PLG Ventures. Kaushal holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where he served as student body president.

Ed’s passion is the Architecture of Commerce–designing places that bring people together in the grand endeavor of the economy. Working closely with clients as both designer and trusted advisor, he has helped to create visionary places for work and industry. Collaboration is the cornerstone of Ed’s architectural approach. He thrives in leading large complex teams through a process driven by a dedication to exceptional design that draws upon the unique skills of all its members. Ed is an innovator in his field. His clients have invited him to speak at national corporate gatherings, and he has been a frequent contributor at national industry conferences, has lectured at MIT and other higher education institutions, and has been a consultant to the United States Green Building Council. Ed has been a partner at KSS since 2000 and has over 30 years of experience. In 2021, Ed graduated from St. John’s University with a master’s degree in global development and social justice.

David Knight serves as Chief Software Architect at Dealpath, the industry's leading deal management solution, where he drives initiatives to expand the scale and capability of infrastructure critical to the software platform. Previously Knight worked at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory developing ground data processing systems for deep space and climate science missions. He holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from Oregon State University and a M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Laura Krashakova is the founder and CEO of Smart Capital Center – an AI-powered Underwriting, Portfolio Insight, and Debt Management Platform used by the largest commercial real estate lenders and investors today. The platform helps drive ROI and cut transaction costs by eliminating routine manual work and leveraging data at scale.

Laura is a trusted advisor to top investment and asset management firms, including JLL, KeyBank, Pacific Life Insurance, helping digitize, automate and bring insight to every step of the investment and lending transaction: from acquisition to disposition.

Heidi Leinbach is an associate principal at Cooper Carry, leading the company’s strategy on adaptive reuse projects. As the visionary responsible for conceptualizing innovative approaches to reusing our existing building stock, she advances Cooper Carry’s goal of for happier, more productive people everywhere. With a background in office, residential and educational design, Heidi blends her background with a sustainable approach to improve the user experience and extend the life cycle of our built environment. She received her Bachelor of Design at University of Florida and her Master of Architecture from University of Virginia.

Dean Lewis is the director of mass timber and prefabrication for Skanska USA. Born and raised in Seattle from a construction family, Lewis has spent his career practicing as a structural engineer, working for a self-perform mass timber installer and fabricator and spending time at a construction start-up focusing on developing a prefabricated kit-of-parts approach to mass timber.

Mike Longo is an investment sales professional and a mutual partner within National Partners - West Region and the SoCal Capital Markets Team. Based in Los Angeles, he is responsible for managing the disposition of institutional commercial property across the West Coast, focusing on multi-market dispositions and capitalizations of institutionally commercial property in Southern California. Since joining CBRE in 2010, Longo has participated in over $20 billion of commercial property transactions.

Based out of Savannah, Georgia, Maene leads Avison Young's Technology Management team. In his role as global product director, he oversees the conceptualization, design, execution and deployment of the company's proprietary technology, AVANT. Servicing clients through a sector-specific lens, Maene and his team build location intelligence software that aims to bring A.I. to the forefront of location strategy efforts, dramatically reducing the need for manual data analytics and interpretation. Maene joined the team in 2019 when he founded company's analytics team, which analyzes market and real estate-adjacent data to help inform strategic decision-making. Drawing on his combined background in fine arts and geography, Maene continues to blend elements of design, technology and urbanism in order to craft meaningful and engaging products for the firm's clients and executive teams.

As vice president of worldwide real estate at Amazon, Daniel Mallory leads an organization responsible for delivering the global footprint for the Amazon Fulfillment Network, including site selection, global acquisition of real estate, building design, and management of all Amazon Store facilities. In his role at Amazon, Mallory leverages his experience leading U.S and international teams in supply chain delivery, mergers and acquisitions, design and construction, and portfolio growth and development. Before Amazon, Mallory was at Walmart for over 20 years serving in several senior leadership positions focused on real estate and M&A growth for both U.S. domestic and international markets. In his most recent role, Mallory was the senior vice president for Walmart International Real Estate based in Hong Kong. During his five-year assignment overseas, Mallory was also the president of Asia Realty, a development company subsidiary of Walmart Stores.

Nate Maniktala brings more than 20 years’ experience in leading strategy for sustainable high-performance real estate projects. His clients include many of the world’s largest real estate investment companies, major U.S. brands, universities, and federal agencies. Maniktala has been a pioneer for sustainability in the industrial sector; his accomplishments include the first LEED® Certified warehouse, first LEED® Platinum Certified industrial building, and first WELL® Certified industrial building. He has served as an advisor for the development of the LEED® for Warehouse & Distribution Center, WELL® for Industrial, and the Fitwel® for Commercial & Industrial Sites rating systems. Additionally, Maniktala has served as an advising consultant to the U.S. General Services Administration’s Office of High-performance Green Buildings and as a state board member for the American Council of Engineering Companies.

Timothy McCahill is a founder and Managing Principal of Transport Properties. His primary responsibilities are leading acquisitions, leasing, and executing the vision for the company and its portfolio of projects. McCahill’s prior 10 years’ experience as a principal at Lee Associates representing the transportation industry contributes to his deep knowledge in IOS and reputation in the space. During his tenure, he represented clients in over $300 million of transactions, totaling over 10 million square feet and 500 acres of land.

Phil Mobley has served the commercial real estate industry for nearly 20 years as a researcher, analyst, consultant and thought leader. His career includes stints at the commercial brokerage Avison Young, PropTech firm Building Engines, and the research consultancy Kingsley Associates, as well as serving as an independent advisor to industry clients. With a background in customer satisfaction and tenant experience research, he views the fundamentals of commercial office building performance through the eyes of the end users. As national director of U.S. office analytics, Mobley helps guide CoStar’s outlook on the office market and produces value-add analysis for subscribers.

Paige Morgan is an Executive Vice President with CBRE based in Portland, Oregon. She joined the company in January of 2019, bringing with her more than twenty years of experience in managing complex dispositions, equity placement and recapitalizations. Throughout her career, Paige has successfully executed more than $6 billion of transactions across the Pacific Northwest and has consistently earned recognition as one of the market’s top-performing brokers, receiving industry achievement awards from NAIOP, SIOR, CAB and CoStar. In 2022, Paige and her West Coast team executed over 72 deals with a total transaction value in excess of $7.2 billion, covering 31.1 MSF and 482 Acres.

Ian Morrison is a partner at McCullough Hill, PLLC, where his practice focuses on land use entitlements, particularly in Washington’s Puget Sound region. Morrison has helped clients secure the zoning and permits for millions of square feet of office and industrial development and tens of thousands of residential units throughout the state. Prior to joining McCullough Hill, he worked for Christine Gregoire, the Governor of Washington, and as a lobbyist for cities. Morrison uses his policy background to help clients navigate political issues arising in the land use process.

Stacey Mosley is the director of research at Brandywine Realty Trust, providing data-driven market analysis, implementing new technologies to improve internal operations, and developing strategies to take on emerging trends. She has spent her career at the intersection of data and real estate, developing solutions to efficiently identify redevelopment and leasing opportunities. After studying manufacturing and design engineering at Northwestern University, Chapman applied her interest in products and process at the City of Philadelphia working on both the Vacant Property Strategy and Open Data Initiative before starting her own proptech company, Stepwise. Chapman is the co-chair of the Women's Leadership Initiative at the Philadelphia chapter of the Urban Land Institute, a NAIOP Visionary, and a recurring guest speaker at Drexel, Temple, and the University of Pennsylvania for courses in urban planning and spatial analysis.

Daren Moss is a principal in the Ares Environmental, Social and Governance Group, where he leads ESG strategy and implementation for the global Real Estate Group. Prior to joining Ares in 2022, Moss was senior vice president, operations and sustainability at Brixmor Property Group, where he focused on developing and overseeing their ESG program and climate change strategy, directed portfolio wide operations and sustainability initiatives, and led environmental risk and liability management. Previously, Moss was a senior project manager at Roux Associates, Inc, where he focused on advising clients in a variety of industries related to legacy contamination issues and environmental aspects of property transactions and development. He holds a B.A. from Colgate University in Geology and an M.E.S. from the University of Pennsylvania in Environmental Studies. Moss is a licensed professional geologist in the State of New York.

Ryan Neale is the managing director of SelectLeaders, a talent platform and search service for commercial real estate, where he leads strategy, operations, recruiting, technology and revenue operations. He has 17+ years of progressive leadership experience within the talent acquisition, technology and professional services industries, and leads a dynamic team that focuses on helping companies source and hire top CRE talent through various recruitment solutions

Dennis Norton is a Senior Consultant at Wipfli LLP, specializing in the business intelligence consulting space. Dennis collaborates with clients across industries such as CRE to architect unique analytic solutions and guide companies to successfully navigating the changing data landscape. With his ability to bridge the gap between technology and business objectives, his clients are empowered to take their data analytics to the next level and turn raw data into real-world insights.

In his current role, Darrien Pinkman is responsible for creating global sourcing strategies that enable the efficient acquisition of goods and services which enable Tishman Speyer’s business strategy. He leads a global team that manages key categories such as IT, marketing, legal, payroll, building maintenance, travel and site services. In his tenure at Tishman Speyer, he has been responsible for leading all aspects of global supplier management, contracting, supplier diversity, and the Black Employee Resource Group. 

As executive leader of Marcus & Millichap’s office and industrial business segments, Al Pontius is primarily responsible for directing the firm’s strategy and growth in these sectors throughout the U.S. and Canada. Additionally, he serves on the firm’s senior executive team responsible for design and execution of firm-wide strategies and initiatives.

John Restrepo is the principal of Las Vegas-based RCG Economics. He directs the firm’s economic, real estate and financial consulting activities. Restrepo has analyzed regional economic and real estate trends in a number of U.S. markets and regions for 42 years (33 years from his base in Las Vegas). His clients include some of the most prominent private and public organizations concerned with economic development, regional economics, development and growth. He has spoken before a variety of business groups on a wide range of commercial economic, real estate and public policy topics.

John currently co-publishes: The StatPack+ an online interactive economic data platform and the weekly Fact Pack business intelligence and newsletter with HighTower Advisors-LV. He also publishes the Nevada Job Flash and REITview (interactive) reports. These products are all available at www.rcgecon.com.

Allison Reynolds is a land use attorney at Stoel Rives LLP. Her practice is focused on helping residential, commercial, and industrial developers and companies navigate all phases of the land use entitlement process in Oregon and Washington. Reynolds is a member of the Board of Directors of NAIOP Oregon and chairs the chapter’s Public Affairs Committee.

Dawn Riegel brings over 20 years of interior architecture and design expertise to the Ware Malcomb team. As Principal, she is responsible for overseeing and reviewing all interiors projects for the Midwest Region. She is also responsible for client relationships and client development. Her experience includes overseeing all aspects of project design and management including programming, space planning, contract drawing preparation, final drawing and code review, and contract administration. Riegel’s project expertise includes commercial office, warehouse, retail, healthcare, industrial, public and education project types.

TJ Sawner is a project executive at Balfour Beatty Construction. He has been in the construction industry for 17 years and built various types of projects including multifamily, adaptive reuse, data centers, higher education, and religious institutions in the Washington, D.C., region.

Arun Singh oversees MDH Partners’ accounting and finance. He is also responsible for the company’s administration, operations, ESG reporting and strategy. Since he joined MDH in 2020, the company has more than doubled their assets under management and expanded the portfolio by more than 15 million square feet. The company has completed 25 financings exceeding $2.2 billion, expanded into seven new states, and has doubled the size of the organization. He is one of the three voting investment committee members and participates in all investment activities, including acquisitions, leasing and financing, and created the company’s ESG policy. Additionally, Singh spends substantial time on the strategic redevelopment of Lee + White in West End, Atlanta. Prior to joining MDH, he was a vice president at MetLife Real Estate and leader of the Southeast commercial mortgage platform. He earned a BSBA in Real Estate from The Ohio State University, a MS in Real Estate, Finance and Investments from New York University, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).

As a principal at Cooper Carry, Steve Smith has been a leader in bringing national recognition to the design work of the firm. With offices in Atlanta, New York, and Washington, D.C., Smith and his partners have built a firm that understands the strong ties between architecture, landscape, urban planning and sustainability. Smith joined Cooper Carry in 1986 and has successfully completed many complex projects of various building types, particularly office, corporate, multifamily and mixed-use. He has led multimillion-dollar projects for developers and government clients. Smith remains tied into the everyday workings of these projects throughout each stage of design and construction. He is responsible for the production of complete, well-coordinated documents and management of the project as the primary contact of the owner’s representative. Smith received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Notre Dame while also spending a year in the Notre Dame Rome Studies program in Italy. He is a member of ULI, DBIA, NAIOP and the AIA and is licensed in 23 states.

Erica Spiritos has long been interested in the design of urban environments in ways that honor the natural resources on which our lives depend. For nearly a decade, she has dedicated her professional energy to advancing the use of mass timber. She began her journey as a sales representative for Structurlam, and went on to establish Swinerton’s mass timber division, which became Timberlab – a leading provider of holistic mass timber systems with a reputation for collaboration and innovation. As VP and Director of Preconstruction, Spiritos brought mass timber dreams to life, helping to deliver precedent-setting projects including Seattle’s Heartwood – a workforce housing project the first Type IV-C building permitted and constructed in the United States. She resides in Portland, Oregon, with her partner and twin sons.

A licensed architect with over 26 years of expertise, Jinger Tapia has been instrumental in building and transforming Ware Malcomb’s Design Group into an international studio and solidifying Ware Malcomb as a thought leader in the design of creative office. She leads the overall design direction for Ware Malcomb and her vision helps to define the firm’s design standards of high quality and innovation. Tapia is one of five women on Ware Malcomb’s senior leadership team and is commended by her team for her ability to effectively bring resolution to any sort of design challenge. She received her Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Arizona.

Mark Taylor is managing director, residential, at American Real Estate Partners (AREP), a Washington, D.C.-based real estate private equity firm. He has over 35 years experience in residential investment, development and operations with institutional and private equity investors. This includes new construction, adaptive reuse and acquisition/rehab totaling more than $4 billion involving apartment communities, condominiums, hotels and retail mixed use. He started the urban platform for the Bozzuto Group in Washington, D.C., a nationally known residential development, investment, construction and management company. Prior to his current position at AREP he was recruited by the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) as the operating partner for a platform company focused on regenerating transitional neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. He has served on institutional boards and nonprofits including the Maryland governor’s Green Building Task Force, National Association of Real Estate Investment Managers, Lambda Alpha International, Urban Land Institute, HomeAid DC and Renaissance Housing Corporation.

Tess Wakasugi-Don started as an intern at GLY in 2005 and in 2019 became the firm’s first female and BIPOC Principal. She’s spent the majority of her career supporting clients in Seattle and Bellevue, and her favorite projects include Pivotal Ventures, Executive Office of Melinda French Gates, and Mary’s Place at The Regrade. Wakasugi-Don currently serves on the NAIOP Board of Directors. In addition, she has served on the Washington State University Construction Management advisory board since 2010 and has recently joined the ACE Mentor Program of Washington Board of Directors. In 2022, she was recognized as a Puget Sound Business Journal 40 Under 40. Outside of work she and her husband Jeremy keep busy with their three boys Seiji (9), Kenji (5), and Riyo (2).

Julia Wattick is a registered architect with expertise in sustainable design. She is passionate about improving a project’s environmental footprint, along with improving the health and experience of building occupants. Wattick leads BranchPattern’s Materials Team, with a focus on understanding the impact of building materials on our climate, ecosystem, economy, as well as social and human health. The Materials Team uses Life Cycle Assessment methodology to measure and analyze carbon and other environmental impact categories.

Breana Wheeler became BRE's director of operations in the U.S. in 2016, launching BREEAM USA in the U.S. market. BREEAM is the world’s first green building rating system and today is the most widely used program worldwide with over 2.3 million registered buildings and over 600,000 certificates issued in more than 89 countries. She oversees the development of the BREEAM programs for the U.S. market, ensuring the program delivers sustainable real estate value to investors, owners, managers and tenants. Prior to joining BRE, Wheeler worked for 10 years as an internal advisor on environmental and sustainability risk management for large, multinational corporations and was based in London.

Ashley Willard Bauman is a proven expert in strategy, marketing, and community-building for world-class neighbourhoods, resorts, hotels, residential, industrial, and office developments based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She works at every stage of the community building process, from the initial vision to completion and beyond. In her 20+ years of experience, she has served as director of business innovation for Intrawest (the largest developers of village-centric resorts), vice president of real estate for Envisioning & Storytelling, director of strategy and marketing for UBC Properties Trust, and consults for numerous high-profile clients across asset classes.

Eric Willett is the managing director of RCLCO’s management consulting practice. He works with a wide variety of market-leading firms throughout the real estate industry to craft and execute organizational strategy, portfolio transformation, and corporate growth initiatives. Willett brings extensive experience in strategic planning and organizational improvement to projects that interface with client teams at all points in the development lifecycle. His collaboration with executive teams has resulted in transformational strategies for real estate companies across all industry sectors and a range of global markets.

Peter Zeihan combines an expert understanding of demography, economics, energy, politics, technology and security to help clients best prepare for an uncertain future. Over the course of his career, he has worked for the U.S. State Department in Australia, the Washington, D.C., think tank community, and helped develop the analytical models for Stratfor, one of the world’s premier private intelligence companies. Zeihan founded his own firm – Zeihan on Geopolitics – in 2012 to provide his clients, representing a vast array of sectors including energy majors, financial institutions, business associations, agricultural interests, universities and the U.S. military with direct, custom analytical products. With a keen eye toward what will drive tomorrow’s headlines, his irreverent approach transforms topics that are normally dense and heavy into accessible, relevant takeaways for audiences of all types.

Katie Zilka Hanson brings over 15 years of experience working in the sustainable built environment to her role with RE Tech Advisors, a LEGENCE Company. She supports client managers to design and deploy award winning sustainability programs that are data-driven and investors aligned. Zilka Hanson brings to her current role expertise in energy efficiency and demand management, as well as auditing, targeted outreach, and program design and implementation services. She’s built curriculum to train auditors, overseen the turnkey implementation of retrofits with fuel switching, and lead teams navigating community scale microgrid feasibility studies. She holds an MA in Sustainable Interior Environments from SUNY Fashion Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s in architecture from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She also maintains a Certified Energy Manager (CEM) certification from Association of Energy Engineers and a LEED AP with the US Green Building Council.