Profiles In Competition

Eric Rosenstock, managing director of Greystone, is the first to admit he is competitive. Not only that but he cheerfully acknowledges that competition is a mainstay in the commercial real estate industry. “It has what you would call a ‘eat what you can kill’ mentality,” he says.

Rosenstock traces this drive back to his elementary and high school days when he played basketball. “I took that competitiveness and applied it everywhere. Even when I was young I knew I wanted to be successful in business.”

It wasn’t always easy, though, he also readily admits.  “Truth be told, I interviewed twice at Greystone before I got the job,” Rosenstock says. “I was turned down twice.”

This year Rosenstock was chosen to be one of our 50 under 40 award recipients. He is part of a group of people who are both complex and multifaceted and yet in other ways remarkably consistent in some of their character traits. A finely-tuned sense of competitiveness is one of these traits.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? Welcome to our annual selection of the 50 under 40 people in commercial real estate. To mark this year’s issue, we have spoken with a handful of the winners to find out how they came to be selected.

Technically, of course, we know exactly why we have chosen these 50 men and women: we were looking for people excelling in their careers who have made a significant impact at their company and in this industry. Believe me, the selection process was not easy. The candidates were all highly qualified and we had several hard moments as we went through the winnowing process.

Reading through these applications, we wanted to figure out what makes high-achievers, especially people in commercial real estate, tick. What is their approach to work that is so different from the rank-and-file? What drives them to achieve? What experiences did they have as a child that contributed to who they are today?

Granted, we are GlobeSt. Real Estate Forum, not Psychology Today. But after conversations with some of the award recipients, we think we have a good handle on why these winners are the way they are. One reason for that is this is a group that is surprisingly self-aware of their own motivations and drive. More than one person told us how they evolved over the course of their careers and that they were better for it. Another reason is that they like to share their expertise and act as thought leaders in their field. As we talked, we identified some of the commonalities banding this group together. Competitiveness probably ranks as the top characteristic. So does a strong drive to succeed. Servant leadership, forging connections and building relationships are some others.

FROM THE BEGINNING Rosenstock is not the only 50 under 40 recipient to have played sports as a child.

Sarah Anderson, senior managing director of Newmark, reports that she played just about every sport when she was young. “I was part of a team and learned how to work in that dynamic.” Another example is Thomas Allen, managing principal of Practice Real Estate Group, who was a competitive golfer for his entire childhood.

A greater impact, though, on this group’s development were their early encounters with the world of work. Anderson, for instance, was a server and is pleased to see that particular job when she is evaluating the CVs of applicants for entry-level jobs. “To be a good server, you have to know how to handle it when you get a lot of requests—there will be five to 10 things coming at you all at once which you have to handle while having a smile on your face,” she says. “I thrived off the pressure of getting everything done and making sure the customer was pleased.”

Heather Border, co-founder and managing partner of Alliance Global Advisors, worked in her family’s hotel, doing whatever job needed to be done at the moment. “From the beginning I saw the grit that it took to hone in on operational excellence. Not giving up and constantly wanting better results, whether it is from a team or a process. Not taking no for an answer or settling for second best. It was all about the constant grind of improvement.”

Then there is Tyler Barth, SVP and investment lead for Kilroy Realty Corp., who formed his own company when he was in fourth grade. “I was the founding owner of Glacier Toilet Service which I worked at until high school. I cleaned bathrooms in office buildings, getting paid $5 then $7 per bathroom.”

For Karin Brandt, founder and CEO of coUrbanize, her early experiences of being constantly on the move played a big role in shaping her worldview. “I moved frequently and lived in different types of communities—as small as 400 people to as large as multiple millions of people—and I was fascinated by how communities can grow or become stagnant. I gravitated to places that were more inclusive and open to growth and change. Change is hard, so I started to ask myself: How do you reduce fear and get people excited about being part of change?”

A COMPETITIVE NATURE Allen of Practice Real Estate Group can also be included in the club of the unabashedly competitive. “I am competitive by nature,” he says. “I like the benefits that winning provides. And my competitors? I definitely want to beat them.”

For many, this sense of competitiveness comes from a desire to excel at their craft. “I have worked hard in creating a reputation for myself,” Greystone’s Rosenstock says. “We are one of the largest agency and HUD producers in the country and when you talk to owner operators, there are a few names that will pass through the discussion and within that handful my name is thrown out there.” In the beginning of his career, he continued, he had to sell himself. “Now people know who I am. I’m viewed as a real contender on which banker to use and my competitors have great respect for who I am.”

Richard Brandenstein, a New York City-based attorney, and FBR Law partner, has also observed this sense of competitiveness among younger generations. “If you think about younger people that are fresh out of school and college, they have come from an environment that’s quite competitive,” he says. “They compete with others and themselves to be the best they can be, and this then passes through to the workplaces they join.”

Kilroy’s Barth, for instance, had a defining ‘ah ha’ moment in college. After years of discipline of doing the hard work of cleaning bathrooms, submitting invoices and banking money, he made the connection that what he was doing on a small scale he could also apply to a career in real estate.

“I love real estate and what we are doing here at Kilroy,” he says. “Over the course of my career I have tried to find opportunities to build relationships and add value. It goes back to my entering the workforce in 2009 during the recession. I don’t take any opportunity for granted.”

SERVANT LEADERS This is not to say, our 50 under 40s are solely competitive for their own sakes. Rather, they also desire to excel to benefit others, such as clients and employees.

Border of Alliance Global Advisors says she is motivated by problem solving for her firm’s clients. “My firm was created to solve the lack of information for investment managers. To fill a void and solve problems—that is the driving force behind my entire career.”

Newmark’s Anderson role is to serve as an intermediary for seniors housing owners, going from client to investor to lender. “I am on the phone all day long, working on deals at any given time.” Besides working on individual deals, clients also come to her for advice on understanding the larger industry trends. When Covid-19 first hit, for example, it had an immediate effect on the seniors housing sector. “What my team and I did is put together a series of webinars and got different stakeholders to present what they were seeing in their own portfolios.” It was very informative, she says, and ultimately uplifting as participants shared what was rapidly-evolving best practices at the time. “I am always looking for ways to be more impactful for clients outside of a single transaction.”

Allen, who told us he likes beating the competition, has a distinctly different attitude to Practice Real Estate Group’s employees. “I am somebody that doesn’t like to let people down, especially our employees. People have to make a living and survive. I really care about everybody, from employees to customers, and I want them to reach their potential.”

Barth expresses similar sentiments. “I want everyone to feel as excited as I do about Kilroy. Part of that is making sure we engage people and have them feel they are a part of the action. Smarter people than me have indicated that as long as the office environment is a better environment than working from home we will be successful.”

MAKING THE CONNECTION Relationships are also very important to this group. “This industry is built upon relationships,” Barth says. “The brokers, vendors and competitors are all close in the Seattle market and I love connecting with these people.”

Indeed, our 50 under 40s are definitely extroverts, relishing in their connections with their colleagues and others in the industry. “I try to establish personal relationships with every stakeholder,” says Anderson. “We work very hard at Newmark, but if you know the people you are working with, if you can understand their needs and motivations, work can be fun as well.”

Relationships with mentors are also prized, with nearly every person relating to us a piece of valued advice they received. Seth Barnett, senior national director of Affordable Housing Advisors, for example, tells us that the best advice he has received over the course of his career came from one of his mentors and that advice was ‘the less you say, the smarter you can sound.’

“My mentor was telling me to focus on what I know, be honest about what I don’t, and figure it out to have a productive follow up with the client. In the long run you gain more respect saying you don’t know, learning and communicating the answer than making something up which may not align with reality,” Barnett says.

WORKING SMARTER Although relatively young still, few in this group have been static in their careers, with several recipients telling us how they have evolved in their approach to work.

For instance, when Rosenstock first entered the industry, he worked hard. “This is an industry that used to be all about the grind,” he says. Over the course of his career, though, he learned to add more analysis and thoughtfulness to his work output. “What I learned is that those that work smarter will come out a little bit ahead. I’ve learned to approach work with more sophistication and apply deep analysis to problems. Working hard is great but working smart is better.”

A case in point is the next stage he sees for his career and for Greystone as well. “Rather than just financing I think we will have to get into sophisticated restructuring of loans that are in high distress. That is where people like myself, with high knowledge of deals, will be best positioned to redo those deals. That is at least 18 months away but it is coming. We are going to see deals in high distress.”

Border of Alliance Global Advisors has also evolved her thinking about what it takes to succeed in commercial real estate. “When I was younger I worked and I worked and I worked,” she says. “Now, I have become much more intentional about to whom I give my time. I have three small kids, I am running my company. Because I don’t have time to waste, I only work with exceptional, dedicated clients,” she says.

“Without intentionality, especially for women, you can get lost along the way. And if you have that mindset and practice it on a daily basis, it can be very powerful over the long term. That was the greatest shift in my career.”