Real Perspectives Podcast

Christopher Yip is a partner at RET Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on the property technology or PropTech space. He’s based in San Francisco and works with his colleagues who are all based out of Park City, UT, evaluating opportunities that will transform the real estate space in the future.

Prior to RET, Chris spent twelve years at the global private equity firm TPG, where he led growth investments in tech-enabled companies and partnered closely with CEOs and entrepreneurs. He began his career as a consultant with McKinsey & Company. 

You can find Chris flying between Park City and San Francisco, trailing the RET team on the snow, or driving anything with four wheels.

Cecilia Quezada is the president and Julia Campbell a partner in San Francisco-based Quezada Architecture, one of few women-owned and managed architecture firms in the Bay Area. Friends for many years and partners over the last year and a half, Cecilia and Julia share the same ambitious and pioneering spirit for design as they do for life. 

Cecilia’s meandering way to San Francisco began in Argentina, where she was born, and continued through Pittsburg, PA where she grew up. She’s proud of taking a trek around the world in her twenties that helped open up her perspective on the role she’d like to play in life, which to this date shapes her architectural narrative.

Julia, on the other hand, hails from London where she spent some time perfecting her persistence and grit working the Petticoat Lane Market to pay her way through architecture school. Now, she rides a Vespa through the streets of San Francisco and hopes her son, currently at University in London will follow in her footsteps.

Like any other business in this day and age, Quezada Architecture is doing its best to keep the mill running and ideas flowing. It’s a time for creative thinking and hard work, two things its leaders have in spades.

Jeff Berkes is an executive vice president and western region president for Federal Realty, one of the nation’s largest commercial real estate REITs. He is responsible for leading Federal Realty’s West Coast leasing, development, asset management, and acquisitions teams; achieving corporate P&L goals; and growing Federal’s Western portfolio. Prior to his current role, Jeff served as chief investment officer for the organization. He also serves as a member of the company’s executive and investment committees. Jeff is based out of Federal Realty’s West Coast headquarters at Santana Row in San Jose, California.

Jordan Moss is the founder of Catalyst Housing Group, a Larkspur, California-based housing investor that focuses on building healthier communities throughout the state of California. Catalyst works in partnership with California Community Housing Agency (CalCHA) with which it has already invested over $550 million of premier multifamily rental communities throughout Northern California. These assets are converted to rent-restricted communities serving middle-income households and are eventually given to the underlying jurisdictions on a long-term basis. It’s an innovative model that drives Jordan and his organization. 

Michael Harder is the Vice President and General Manager for Mortenson’s Seattle office. Michael joined Mortenson in 1994 on the Northridge Mall project. He then worked for a brief time in the Seattle office on the Federal Detention Center project before relocating to San Francisco to lead the seismic retrofit of the company’s Kaiser Permanente Hospital project. Michael returned to Seattle in 2000 to aid in operational oversight of the office and has since taken over the leadership of that office including responsibilities such as recruiting, training and mentorship.

We sit down with Michael to talk about the impact the most recent crisis has had on the firm, and why Mortenson is building so many soccer stadiums.

A3 Workplace Strategies is a Bay Area-based commercial office workplace solutions company focused on office design, process alignment, project implementation management, corporate facilities management and architecture. Robin Weckesser is its founder who after years of working in corporate real estate at Apple and running a workplace solutions practice for Cresa in Silicon Valley ventured on his own in 2015 to use the +35 years of industry experience to set his own path.

We speak with Robin about the challenges of workplace design in the Bay Area, and how the industry will be impacted by the changes occurring today.

Ken Lowney founded Lowney Architecture in the Bay Area in 2003 and is the President of the firm. Ken’s approach to architecture is rooted in his belief that architecture is more than simply buildings; and, if thoughtfully and responsibly done it can positively contribute to society and advance a community. We talk with Ken today about the process of forming his own business, the challenges with doing innovative work and the opportunities large disruptions like COVID-19 may bring to the industry in the future.

Keith Craw began his career in construction working for a custom home builder in California’s Central Valley. Since joining Blach Construction in 2006, he has made significant contributions to the operations team, working his way up from project manager to project executive and currently, as vice president, operations. In this role, Keith is immersed in strategic planning and staffing for all projects of the company as it enters its 50-year anniversary of building and making Northern California what it is today.

The Registry and Transwestern extend their partnership in telling startup stories from across the Bay Area and their impact on the real estate market in the region. This is the first podcast where we sit with Jack Seymour to talk to one such startup and try to understand the impact of the economic shifts on its business.

As the first U.S. employee at Talkdesk, Shauna Geraghty helped scale Talkdesk’s marketing team, infrastructure and activities from the ground-up. In 2016, she was tapped to build Talkdesk’s talent acquisition function and since then has helped scale Talkdesk to nearly 1,000 employees in seven offices globally. Geraghty has a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and has applied foundational knowledge from the field of psychology to help propel Talkdesk along its hyper-growth trajectory.