Thesis Driven Leader Series

Jodie McLean is the CEO of EDENS, one of the largest and most influential private retail real estate owners and developers in the U.S., with a $6.6 billion portfolio spanning over 100 open-air centers. A 30-year industry veteran and pioneer of community-focused development, McLean has redefined retail not as a commodity transaction but as a human experience. At the helm of EDENS, she’s driven a bo...

Sue Yannaccone is the President & CEO of Anywhere Brands, the residential real estate powerhouse behind Coldwell Banker, Sotheby’s International Realty, Century 21, Corcoran, and Better Homes and Gardens. With over 350,000 agents in its network, Anywhere is the largest brokerage platform in the U.S.—giving Yannaccone a front-row seat to the biggest shifts reshaping housing. In this episode, Br...

Minna Song is the co-founder and CEO of EliseAI, a company using advanced natural language processing to automate communication across the multifamily industry—and beyond. Originally launched as MeetElise, the company powers AI leasing agents for over 350 customers, including 70% of the 50 largest rental housing operators in the U.S., but Song’s vision goes far beyond leasing. In this episode, she...

Adam Gordon doesn’t build what’s trending—he builds what’s missing. A fourth-generation New Yorker and founder of Wildflower Ltd., Gordon has spent three decades solving real estate puzzles most developers ignore: building Amazon’s first NYC e-commerce warehouse, redefining urban luxury townhouses, and now launching a vertical film studio in Queens with Robert De Niro and Bjarke Ingels. In this ep...

Jamie Hodari led Industrious through the category’s volatile boom to a landmark $800M acquisition by CBRE—without ever calling it “co-working.” In this episode, Jamie joins Brad to reflect on the real reasons Industrious outlasted and outperformed WeWork and others, how venture capital incentives broke office operators, and why management contracts—not leases—were the quiet revolution. Now serving...

Casey Roloff is the visionary behind Seabrook, Washington—a purpose-built, walkable town inspired by new urbanist principles and over two decades in the making. In this episode, he shares how low leverage, long-term thinking, and a deep respect for timeless town design helped Seabrook survive market cycles and become a model for a new kind of American development. We also dive into his vision for...

What does it take to build a world-class tech strategy inside one of America’s largest multifamily REITs? Rukus Esi, the Chief Digital Officer at AvalonBay Communities and today’s guest, is in the driver’s seat. From centralization and AI to predictive maintenance and PropTech fatigue, Rukus joins us to share how AvalonBay vets new technology, pilots solutions across 90,000+ units, and stays ahead...

Real estate capital markets are undergoing a tremendous transformation, with tried-and-true strategies no longer offering the opportunities they once did. Today’s guest, Brandon Sedloff, has a unique perspective on the changes afoot. As Chief Real Estate Officer at investment management software platform Juniper Square, Sedloff has a special view of the real estate investment landscape. In today’s...

Being a real estate developer can be a lonely business. But one builder is making it a little less so. This episode’s guest, Sean Sweeney, has built an audience by telling the story of life as a developer, warts and all. Co-founder of Hall Sweeney Properties, Sweeney built a reputation as a thoughtful multifamily builder in the Minneapolis area. We’ll discuss his development work and story as well...

The blending of apartments and hotels has been one of the biggest real estate trends of the past decade. And this episode’s guest, Roman Pedan, co-founder and CEO of Kasa, has had a front row seat. This episode is a wide-ranging conversation covering the future of multifamily, the role and evolution of flex rentals, and technologies on the horizon that have the potential to overturn real estate co...

How many venture investors once ran a residential real estate brokerage? Era Ventures Founder and Managing Partner Clelia Peters just might be the only one. In 2014, she took the reins at Warburg Realty, her family’s real estate brokerage firm and the largest independent brokerage in NYC. Along the way, she built one of the most impressive backgrounds in proptech investing, co-founding top acceler...

While Charles Marohn began his career as an engineer, he soon realized that the problems plaguing American urban design - particularly in the suburbs - ran deep. So he quit his engineering job and began writing about how to redesign cities for livability and people rather than cars. His work - including books Strong Towns and Confessions of a Recovering Engineer - became very influential in the Ne...

Real estate is nothing without people. Even the most beautiful, historic spaces occasionally need a boost, and Stephanie Blake is the magician making that happen. As CEO of Skylight, she’s responsible for activating spaces ranging from New York’s Moynihan Station and St. John’s Terminal to San Francisco’s Ferry Building and Detroit’s Michigan Central Station. Blake has built a reputation working w...

Spencer Rascoff has had an extraordinary career as a leading real estate tech founder and investor. As the founder of Zillow, he revolutionized how homebuyers, sellers, and agents market and discover listings. More recently, he launched Pacaso, a fractional ownership platform for second homes which now serves the owners of more than 1,400 homes. Since leaving Zillow, Spencer has been a prolific fi...

Steve Case has spent the past 40 years at the intersection of technology, cities, and innovation. He was one of the leaders of the internet revolution as the founder and chairman of AOL. Since then, he’s dedicated himself to investment in entrepreneurs and innovation as the founder of the venture firm Revolution. Along the way, Case developed a thesis for investment and economic growth that’s a li...

In 2011, without any real estate experience, Caren Maio co-founded Funnel and scaled it to become one of the leading multifamily marketing platforms in the real estate ecosystem today. Since then, she’s been an entrepreneur-in-residence at Camber Creek and President at Moved. She’s dedicated herself throughout her career to mentoring other proptech startups and is now a highly sought-after advisor...

For three decades, Dan Doctoroff’s vision for cities–and how technology can make them better–has shaped how we think about urban centers in the US. Perhaps more than anyone, he brought forward the initiatives that made NYC what it is today: the Highline, Barclays Center, Long Island City Waterfront, Hudson Yards and Citi Bike, among many. Doctoroff’s dreams, sweat, and speed are behind all of them...

.Welcome to the Thesis Driven Leader Series! Thesis Driven editor Brad Hargreaves speaks with Dave Eisenberg, Founding Partner at Zigg Capital. It’s a great conversation about the convergence of venture and real estate investing. And it’s a unique opportunity for investors and entrepreneurs to glean thoughtful - and actionable - insights about innovation, economics and growth in the proptech start...

A pioneer in the world of real estate crowdfunding, Jilliene Helman joins Brad on the Thesis Driven Leader Series this week. She’s the founder of RealtyMogul, an online investment platform that gives members access to real estate deals traditionally reserved for larger investors. Late last year, RealityMogul announced that more than $1 billion has been invested on their platform. Through her platf...

It’s hard to find a more ambitious, thorny, crazy, fascinating, optimistic example of innovation in real estate than what Jan Sramek is doing in California. He’s the founder and CEO of California Forever, the company building the increasingly famous - and at times infamous - new city northeast of San Francisco in Solano County. In this episode, Jan shares why he decided to start a new city  a...

Welcome back to the Thesis Driven Leader Series! In this episode, Thesis Driven editor and host Brad Hargreaves is speaking with one of the preeminent developers of our generation, MaryAnne Gilmartin. She’s known for building Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, Atlantic Yards, and the New York Times building, to name a few. And she’s now expanding beyond New York City to develop the Baltimore Peninsula -...

In this week’s episode, Thesis Driven Editor Brad Hargreaves speaks with one of the most respected thinkers on the future of work and real estate, Dror Poleg. Dror is the author of the acclaimed books After Office (2023) and Rethinking Real Estate (2019).  Through their conversation, Brad and Dror dive into how macroeconomic factors and advances in technology influence how businesses source,...

Rhett Bennett and Moses Kagan are co-founders at ReSeed Partners, a new firm at the frontier of real estate development and investment. They're taking a novel approach that echoes venture accelerators like Y Combinator. They're joining Brad for our first episode of the Thesis Driven Leader Series to share insights why they launched ReSeed, how they went about assembling their first cohort, what th...

Welcome to the Thesis Driven Leader Series hosted by Brad Hargreaves. The Leader Series Podcast is an accompaniment to our weekly Thesis Driven newsletter, one of Substack's top 15 business newsletters. https://www.thesisdriven.com/ This podcast will feature conversations with the leading voices at the intersection of real estate, cities, innovation and the built world. We'll talk about how techno...