Throughout your time at A&R Development Corp., you’ve focused on real estate projects that uplift urban communities. How do you integrate sustainability into your work, and why is it vital for urban development?
Sustainability is vital for urban communities, as it ties directly to equity. Our company is primarily focused on adaptive reuse and redevelopment of the urban core—we’ve never really been greenfield developers per se. Our thought has always been about how can we contribute to the reimagining of a city through the work that we do. That includes affordability, as transitioning to a greener economy often comes at a higher cost. Throughout our history, the majority of our multi-family development has been in the master planning of affordable housing. Therefore, the ability for people to be able to afford the housing that they need continues to be at the forefront of how we at A&R think about cleaner and greener cities.
Your career spans diverse fields: marketing, consulting, strategy, and now real estate development. How has this variety shaped your leadership and worldview? What led you to real estate, and when did your passion for it begin?
I’ve always been fascinated by business at large, and the variety of experiences I’ve had have both helped me see the commonality across diverse industries and business types and has prepared me to be a strong contributor in the boardroom, which is where I spend a lot of my time now. Possessing the ability to see, digest, and address a broad landscape of issues, as well as to assess risk, becomes more important than being a great technician as you get further into your career. Consequently, I find that the diversity of my experience has directly played into one of the things that I have come to love, which is board work.
As for real estate, my passion has never been for the “sticks and bricks,” but rather has been for the people and the communities. The communities that we have developed are places where people create their lives, earn a living, and raise their children. And this is what I’ve always tried to keep at the forefront of my mind: that it is a privilege to create a place for people to live their lives. It’s far more than just driving by a building, pointing to it, and saying, “Oh, we built that structure.” It’s so much more—it remains about the lives that are lived in those spaces, and how we can contribute successfully to their experience.
You have dedicated yourself to developing and building strong local communities. What strategies do you find most effective in creating successful partnerships within the community, and how have they evolved over time?
Having worked on several partnerships, I’ve learned the importance of values alignment. Yes, there are plenty of companies out there with heaps of talent and a wealth of resources, but do they share your values? We’ve had partnerships in the past that have struggled with because when major decisions needed to be made, our way of doing business was different than theirs—and that tends to be the root cause of most issues. My father, who founded our company, has always said, “If I have to look at the partnership agreement more than once then something has gone very wrong.” As a result, we always put a lot of thought into who we’re aligning with.
As we’ve grown and shifted from being ground-up developers to more real estate investors, we continue to emphasize this importance of values alignment as a core principle: Who are we investing with? Do they approach their way of doing business the same way we do?
You recently received the BCG Alumni Shapers Award, presented by the BCG Washington, D.C., office. The award is intended to formally recognize exceptional alumni and showcase the enduring effect of BCG’s mission and values. Reflecting on your time at BCG, how does this award resonate with you? What lessons or leadership insights from BCG continue to influence your work and shape the impact you have?
In terms of resonance, it’s flattering to be honored among such a distinguished group of alumni. BCG has the great fortune to have so much talent—both past and present. When I reflect on the lessons from my time at BCG, beyond the great skills I gained through my experience as a consultant, which I still lean into daily to this very day, I think about the leadership lessons I’ve observed and learned from the firm since I became an alum. In other words, I really admire the steady metamorphosis BCG has undergone. The firm has grown and evolved over time, worked on itself, and been humble about the things that it could do better. The high quality of work BCG produces has always been a given. But I’ve also seen the efforts BCG has put in areas such as DE&I, talent development, and sustainability, which, frankly, weren’t emphasized when I was a consultant in the late 1990s. It makes me proud when I see BCG as a global thought leader in many of these areas, which further serves as a reminder to me that a critical component of good leadership is the willingness to continue working on yourself.
Please share a memorable moment as a career or community leader that embodies the values illustrated by the award.
The primary observation I have when I look at BCG’s values is seeing how closely aligned they are with my firm’s values. Integrity, which I’ve always felt has been at the forefront at BCG, is something we lead with as well. There’s been more than one instance when our firm has renegotiated our share of a deal because we felt that the partner was carrying more of the project load and we wanted to make sure the compensation reflected their efforts, which might have turned out to be greater than ours or originally anticipated. To me, that is integrity. It’s the fact that you trust in a partnership, and trust that if you’re going to approach it the right way, you will get compensated appropriately and fairly over the life of a deal.
What advice do you have for young professionals who want to get more involved in their communities?
Look for causes that either light you up or that break your heart. Always approach any contribution you make with the idea of reciprocity. And by that I mean, when you’re giving something—whether it’s your time, your talent, or your treasure—recognize that you’re receiving something as well. Ask yourself, “What do I have to learn from the organization, the experience, or the people I’m serving?” We often think of our contributions to the community as a one-way exercise, but I think it’s always most expansive and productive for the world if we remember that everything is a two-way street, and that we have as much to gain from our participation in our communities as we have to give to them.
As an example, I’m on the board of a nonprofit organization called Thread, which is focused on serving young people in low-performing high schools here in Baltimore City. The idea is that the organization “wraps” around those young people with a group of adults who see them throughout their entire high school experience and beyond. We have never unenrolled a young person from the program. This wraparound is organized almost like a family, so for anything that young person might need—whether it’s career support, a ride to school, or food on the table—Thread will wrap around that young person. It creates a social fabric. There is this idea of reciprocity because the family-like structure also helps to combat the loneliness and social isolation that adults increasingly feel. That is how community is created. It’s not a top-down approach, but rather a weaving of a group of people to create this social fabric to rely on.
Personally, the reasons I chose to invest my time working with Thread are twofold. First, I’m at a stage of my life now where I want to be in the company of brave and wholehearted leaders who are trying to create the transcendent, that is something I seek through the choices I make now. And the founder of Thread is that kind of leader. Second, this idea of equity, of reciprocity, is being done so well at Thread. I realized it was something being practiced every day, and that there were things for me to learn that I could take back into my for-profit life and into boardrooms.
As you mentioned, you have experience on the boards of companies across a myriad of industries. How do you navigate the nuances each sector presents? Do you find opportunities to apply insights or cross-pollinate strategies from one industry to another?
Absolutely! I’ve had people ask me how I make sense of all the industries I’m in and I have to say, there is so much shared learning. Disruption happening in one industry has so many learnings for disruption in the next industry, even if the businesses seem completely unrelated. There’s no company or industry right now that’s not being disrupted. If you can see the conceptual tie, you can bring that learning into the room for people. Management teams are often (rightfully) focused on their own business that they count on the board to be able to provide a broader perspective. For me, that has been what’s been fascinating: that I’m able to add value and touch so many industries through the work I do.