Growth Company Responds to Industry Shift
In this EXCLUSIVE, Matt Macko, founder of stok, recently discussed the company’s growth plans, focus and niche in the industry, as it has grown its team with four new members in response to tech influences.
SAN FRANCISCO—stok, a provider of sustainable design, project management, and engineering and commissioning solutions for commercial real estate developers, has grown its team with four new members. Raghu Sunnam, Linda Tim, Michelle Kotula and Brittany Saulsbury will help deliver sustainable real estate solutions for stok’s clients. In this exclusive, Matt Macko, founder of stok, recently discussed the company’s growth plans, focus and niche in the industry.
GlobeSt.com: What does stok offer for its clients, and how does stok see itself as fitting into the commercial real estate marketplace?
Macko: stok provides value-aligned real estate services to developers, property owners and corporate users around the world. We apply strategy and financial analysis to our full suite of integrated services to radically improve project delivery for our clients and optimize the performance of commercial real estate. The real estate landscape is certainly evolving as user demands shift. stok is poised to benefit from the broad shifts towards real estate tech, health and wellness, and supply chain transparency.
GlobeSt.com: How has the commercial real estate market changed in recent years?
Macko: It’s impossible to ignore the impact of rapid technological advances in commercial real estate. We’re witnessing a democratization of information, an inevitably transparent marketplace and most importantly, a real shift to a strong, clean-energy economy. Our industry needs to remain nimble to adapt to these advancements just as the food companies have in response to changing consumer behavior.
GlobeSt.com: Given these changes, how has stok shifted its position in the marketplace as a result?
Macko: stok employs an organizational design that is decentralized in order to be able to respond quickly to changes in our customer’s behavior. We started 10 years ago as a small consulting shop and today, our customers ask us to deliver turnkey spaces based on their values while enhancing their employees’ well being.
stok has always been focused on creating high-performance spaces, but we have more recently developed an integrated approach to ensure the smoothest and most effective project delivery. By bringing together expertise from fields like architecture, construction, engineering, brokerage and finance in-house, stok is able to provide an integrated approach—we set bold goals from the project outset, map a fully integrated path to achieve them and then guarantee delivery. We combine our skillsets in sustainable design, project management and engineering with a strategic, financial approach to deliver the highest performing projects at below market cost. Today, we are especially focused on tech-enabled space solutions for corporate users that have strong commitments to environmental and social goals.
GlobeSt.com: How has stok expanded its services to meet the needs of its clients?
Macko: stok has been honing its sustainable design, engineering and commissioning services for the past decade. We were so disheartened at the traditional misalignment of project interests that we added an owner’s rep project management division. Our integrated approach helps us reduce friction and inefficiencies often experienced during project delivery, resulting in a significantly better space for users.
GlobeSt.com: Are there specific industry sectors that you’re focusing on?
Macko: As organizations try to attract and retain talent through their workspaces, cities try to solve the housing crisis. And, as brick and mortar brands try to avoid obsolescence in a digital economy, office, multifamily residential and retail have risen to the top of our agenda. It has been especially rewarding to work with brands at scale, amplifying the impact of their real estate sustainability programs across national and global portfolios.
GlobeSt.com: How do the new hires contribute to these new services that stok is providing and how do they reflect the company’s growing/changing goals?
Macko: Our new hires help us move forward into the realm of fully integrated real estate services for the entire project lifecycle while taking a truly data-driven and strategic approach. They are often ‘ex-architects’ or ‘ex-corporate real estate,’ meaning they were disheartened by the business model and approach to business that their previous firms undertook. We like to think that stok is built for tomorrow while many decades-old firms are built for yesterday.