Real Perspectives Podcast

On today’s podcast, we have the pleasure of talking with Chely Wright , Unispace’s recently minted first Chief Diversity Equity & Inclusion Officer. Chely brings a background that fuses advocacy, business, real estate and communications, and has worked with companies such as Procter & Gamble, Southeastern Grocers and Morgan Stanley to advance their DE&I programs, having established rel...

When Matt Macko and I first met, he was just kicking off the formation of this business in San Francisco, which was going to focus on building more sustainable spaces and buildings. In a similar way, we were also trying to make a name for ourselves in an industry that over the last decade transformed the Bay Area commercial real estate market into one of the most important ones across the world. M...

Julia Weatherspoon is an architectural designer at SmithGroup and current president of the San Francisco Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects, ( SF NOMA ) . With a mission to to create more inclusive spaces within design, her projects range from workplace commercial interiors, aviation, community and civic design, and now Higher Education. Julia holds a Bachelors of Architec...

On today’s show, we’re going to do a quick San Francisco commercial real estate market overview, and today, that is brought to you by Zac Monsees . Zac is a vice president at Transwestern in San Francisco, and his team advises on leasing and capital markets transactions throughout the San Francisco Bay Area on behalf on institutional landlords, family trusts and owner-occupiers. Zac joins us today...

Veronica Hinkley Reck is a licensed architect with over 25 years of experience designing award-winning affordable, market-rate and senior housing projects. Veronica brings a particular passion for creating beautiful, sustainable affordable housing that is specific to its context and population and that truly enhances the lives of its residents and their communities.    She founded and ran her own...

Jon Scholes was named President & CEO of Downtown Seattle Association in November of 2014, following six years as the organization’s Vice President of Advocacy & Economic Development. He believes the health of downtown Seattle is critical to a healthy city and region, and he’s led this organization during a time of explosive growth for Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. This provided immen...

Mike Sroka is the co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Dealpath , a company that describes itself as a platform that enables smarter deal management in the commercial real estate world. Prior to Dealpath, Mike has spent over a decade growing venture-backed software companies including Fanhood (acq. by FOX), Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA) and OneSeason (acq. by Cantor Fitzgerald). He co-founded Dealpath...

Tom Deane serves as the CEO of Project Mark . He has spent 10 years in the Construction Industry working primarily in Cost & Risk Management. He's been involved on a multitude of different projects, from new healthcare facilities to major high-rise developments. He has a bachelor's degree in Quantity Surveying from Limerick Institute of Technology. Noel Brady has taken on the role of Project M...

Jonathan Needell is the president and chief investment officer of Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.-based Kairos Investment Management , a commercial real estate investment firm focused on acquisition, asset management and development of a mix of property types that over time have invested over $1 billion in more than 12 million square feet of commercial space, including 11,000 multifamily units. Jon...

Randy Tsuda is the President and CEO of Palo Alto, California-based Alta Housing , an affordable housing development firm that has been active in Silicon Valley for over 50 years.  Randy joined Alta Housing in 2018 after serving as the Mountain View Community Development Director for over 10 years. His career includes experience in the non-profit, private, and public sectors, and spans real estate...

Tony Gonzalez is the Chief Operating Officer of San Jose BioCube , a 37,000 square foot life science and biotech incubator in the heart of Silicon Valley. With a decade of lab facility expertise, Tony oversees all BioCube operations, which includes specialized co-working spaces and lab facilities for high-growth startups in this area of innovation. Prior to BioCube, Tony managed high-profile labor...

Jessica Musick is a Principal in the Oakland office of KTGY, an architecture firm she joined in 2003. Since her start at the firm, she developed a diverse portfolio and plays an integral role in establishing the design vision and carrying projects through design approvals. Focusing on urban-infill mixed-use projects, Jessica believes that architecture should be deeply rooted in the community where...

David Greschler is the Co-Founder & CEO of Nomad Go , a company he founded in 2016 with an initial focus in the food-service and retail markets. Since then, Nomad Go's capabilities have spanned across verticals, serving customers in the commercial real estate, entertainment, hospitality and education markets. Nomad Go's real-time data capture using computer vision, machine learning and edge pr...

Donna Clark is a Senior Managing Director of the Northern California/Nevada Region for Kennedy Wilson. She is responsible for the operations, leasing, business development and asset management for more than 10 million square feet of office, industrial and retail properties throughout Northern California and Nevada. Her team includes construction managers, property managers, accountants and brokers...

Rhonda Diaz is an Executive Vice President in the Food & Beverage, Hospitality, Entertainment Retail in JLL’s San Francisco office. She is a native to the San Francisco Bay Area and has a deep understanding of retail, food and beverage urban hospitality-oriented environments, trends and psychographics. Some of her recent high-profile assignments include Chase Arena, Piers 1.5 to 5, the Histori...

Today’s guest on the pod is Henry D’Esposito . Henry is a senior research analyst with JLL in their National Construction and Project & Development Services group. He is based in the firm’s Washington, DC office, and he recently helped author a study that looked at the national trends impacting the construction market with a special emphasis on construction technology. We sat down with Henry r...

Jay Olshonsky has been the President and Chief Executive Officer of NAI Global since December 2012 when C-III Capital Partners LLC acquired the firm. Jay is responsible for the all operations of NAI Global, as well as an active leader on the NAI Global Capital Markets Group, which focuses on the disposition of individual assets, notes and portfolio sales in a number of property sectors including o...

Kay Sargent is a director of HOK’s global WorkPlace practice. With a passion for using design to transform how and where people work, she spends her days (and many nights) working with clients on workplace strategy and design. Based in Washington, D.C., Kay leads project teams that solve clients’ business and organizational challenges related to real estate business process, strategic planning, wo...

Today, we talk to Brandi Susewitz, the founder and CEO of Clear Office . Brandi and her team are looking to transform the commercial office space industry by providing an easy to use platform where used office furniture, often just a few years old, can be sold and reused. This eliminates millions of cubic feet of waste and it helps companies find ways to repurpose a perfectly functional piece of f...

Today, we sit down with Mark Gilbreath, the CEO of LiquidSpace , which is the largest, real time network for office space serving individuals and teams from over 109,000 businesses in 2,700 cities. The LiquidSpace Network transforms the entire commercial real estate process by connecting growing teams and professionals looking for space, directly with venue partners, space providers, real estate p...

I am joined today again with my co-host Jack Seymour of Transwestern for our joint startup stories podcast. Today, we speak with OKCoin’s Bob Lehto , the International Head of People at the company. OKCoin is on a mission to make crypto investing and trading more accessible to anyone around the world. Founded in 2013, OKCoin is a global exchange numbering 250 employees with its headquarters office...

Building a co-living enterprise was a challenge even before the COVID pandemic, but Starcity founder and CEO Jon Dishotsky took the approach of building communities from his early days and family focus on communal living. Today, Starcity is growing, it just acquired a competing operator Ollie, which gives it instant exposure on the East Coast, and the company is poised for further growth as it mov...

Robert Freed is the Chief Executive Officer of SummerHill Homes and SummerHill Apartment Communities , a privately owned home builder focusing on the unique needs of the San Francisco Bay Area. Over the last 40 years, SummerHill has completed more than 70 developments representing over 5,000 single-family homes, condominiums, townhomes, and apartments. Robert draws from a dynamic background in rea...

Tony Vargas is the Global Head of Workplace at sprinklr , a New York-based technology firm that is growing across the globe. Tony is making great strides in creating an environment for the company's distributed workplace to feel engaged and connected, as well as experience work in a brand new mode guided by the limitations imposed by COVID-19. He doesn't think the office will ever be the same agai...

We sit down today with Mark Whiting, the co-founder, chairman and CEO of San Francisco-based Drawbridge Realty . Drawbridge is a real estate investment and development company that targets commercial property investments in growth markets across the U.S. Its portfolio primarily consists of office properties leased long-term to large corporations with an emphasis on strategically important location...