Place Making

Jonathan Brinsden is President of Irvine Company’s Office Properties. He is responsible for the leadership and overall performance of the division, including a fully-integrated customer-centric platform of development, design, construction, leasing, operations, and marketing. He oversees portfolio growth strategies through acquisitions and development, and performance of the division’s nearly 53-million-square-foot operating portfolio. The portfolio includes properties in Orange County, San Diego, West Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Chicago and New York City. He joined the company in 2021.

Bryce is a force of nature. He is the Founder & Managing Director of Access Ventures. AV employs a one-pocket approach (which we will talk a lot about) to tackle complex social problems with asymmetric solutions and a blended portfolio of investments. Bryce has been an Army officer, a pastor, an adjunct instructor, a producer, and an author.

Some Key Links from our Conversation:

More Than Profit Podcast:

This week we are talking to Scott Berka. Scott is a Senior Managing Director and leads Brand and Customer Experience for Greystar Enterprise Services. Scott is responsible for setting the brand strategy for Greystar and our global portfolio of brands. He also provides strategic oversight for innovation and continuous improvements to our customer experience, in partnership with operations and technology teams. In addition, he oversees Greystar's global website and social media presence. Scott is also a member of the Greystar Executive Committee.

For those of you who don’t know, Greystar is a fully integrated global leader in the investment, development, and management of rental housing properties. Greystar manages and operates an estimated $150 billion of real estate in over 185 markets globally. Greystar is the largest operator of apartments in the United States, managing more than 500,000 units/beds, and has a robust institutional investment management platform with approximately $35.8 billion of assets under management.

Before joining Greystar in 2019, Scott was a leader in the Marketing and Customer Experience Practice at McKinsey & Company. While there, he advised fortune 500 clients in the financial services and retail sectors to improve their marketing and customer experience capabilities. companies and sectors.

Scott received his bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in Business, and earned his Master’s of Business Administration from Yale School of Management.

Scott and I have had several conversations before today and find him to be one of the clearest thinkers and strategists in the residential space. He and his team are certainly shaping a huge part of the future of residential placemaking and end-user resident experience.

In this episode I talk to Joe Pine, author of seven great business books, TED-speaker, and advisor to Fortune 500 companies. He wrote a treatise called the experience economy that was foundational to how I think about real estate. Joe is a rockstar.

He has addressed the World Economic Forum, the original TED conference, and the Consumer Electronics Show. A former Visiting Scholar with the MIT Design Lab, he is currently a Lecturer with the Columbia University School of Professional Studies.

Joe is co-founder of Strategic Horizons which offers the tools, experiences, and education to explore and master today’s economic marketplace.

Links:

• Computers as Theatre by Brenda Laurel

This week we have a special episode. We are talking with James Ray and Reggie Rawlins about the education of placemaking from two incredible leaders.

James is a friend and let’s just put it like this; he is a rockstar in the real estate space. You name he’s done it. property and portfolio acquisitions, developments and redevelopments, joint venture sourcing and structuring, asset management, mortgage portfolio management, and corporate M&A activity.

But what makes James so compelling to me is he has a teacher’s heart. His passion is to see others get the education they need to be world-class in the vocation of real estate.

This leads us to Reggie. He is one of these guys who got an accelerated and focused education from James and now works in real estate investment management for one of the largest and most respected firms in the industry.

Join us this week as we speak with John Marsh! John Marsh is a husband, father of two boys and a visionary entrepreneur, who has been instrumental in rebuilding the historic downtown of Opelika, Alabama. Over the last 25 years, he has been involved in over 30 startup businesses in various industries, including construction, real estate investing, advertising, and hospitality. Today, John’s focus is on helping others make generational differences in their communities by helping patrons bridge the gap between redeeming vision and execution.

This week we are talking with Matt Morris. Matt has had all of the following titles: board member, a public company CEO, entrepreneur, investor, leader, husband (to the wonderful Melissa), and father (4 awesome boys). He also happens to carry the title of mentor and friend to Trevor. As we'll see today, Matt is full of wisdom and has a very important skill of making the complex simple. We’re grateful to have him join us.

This week we are talking with Ben Pleat, Ben is CEO and founder of Cobu, a platform powering genuine communities in apartment buildings.

After graduating from Harvard, Ben discovered his interest in real estate through working on the growth team at WeWork and later through the real estate private equity group at Goldman Sachs.

During this time, Ben learned just how big of a problem turnover to residential real estate owners and managers. He was shocked to learn that on average, apartment buildings would see around 50% churn in residents every year.

This problem combined with the personal experience of his mom experiencing feeling isolated in a very nice apartment she lived in, inspired Ben to create a solution. Ben developed a thesis that a key contributor to high turnover is the lack of ‘stickiness’ caused by a weak community.

As the Senior Managing Director of Berkadia’s Texas Multifamily Investment Sales Team, Ryan Epstein has positioned Berkadia as one of the most successful investment sales in the Texas Multifamily market. Ryan has over 12 years of multifamily sales experience with a specialty in strategic planning, transaction management, and financial structuring to ensure successful implementation of client investment strategies.

Prior to joining Berkadia, Ryan was Executive Vice President and leader of the Texas Gulf Coast Multifamily Investment Sales for CBRE. Where he and I worked together.

Ryan is so respected by his peers in the industry. When we mention his name to our owner partners, it is clear Ryan has a reputation as someone who is uniquely gifted at guiding clients through their acquisition. His deep domain knowledge of the industry, capital markets, and what drives value in multifamily is uncanny.

Links:

• Craftwork Hospitality Co.