February 29 - March 1, 2024

• Signia by Hilton Bonnet Creek

Meet the Featured Presenters

More presenters will be added soon!

  • Raphael Bostic
    Raphael Bostic

    President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

    Dr. Raphael W. Bostic took office June 5, 2017, as the 15th president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. He is responsible for all the Bank’s activities, including monetary policy, bank supervision and regulation, and payment services. In addition, he serves on the Federal Reserve’s chief monetary policy body, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta serves the Sixth Federal Reserve District, which covers Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, and parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. The Bank has branches in Birmingham, Jacksonville, Miami, Nashville, and New Orleans.
  • Steven DeRose
    Steven DeRose

    Senior Vice President, Starwood Mortgage Capital

    Mr. DeRose is a Senior Vice President at Starwood Mortgage Capital, where he is responsible for originating, structuring and closing loans on all property types for securitization. Prior to joining SMC, Mr. DeRose was a Director at Tannery Brook Partners, a boutique real estate investment bank providing advisory services to clients on commercial real estate matters, which included mergers and acquisitions, property-level recapitalizations and debt restructurings. Prior to his time at Tannery Brook Partners, Mr. DeRose served as a Director in Wells Fargo Securities’ Special Situations Group, where he was responsible for the workout and restructuring of principal investments in structured commercial real estate debt throughout the country. In this role, Mr. DeRose was responsible for overseeing an approximately $1.3 Billion loan portfolio. Prior to working in the Special Situations Group, Mr. DeRose held various positions within the bank’s predecessor, Wachovia Securities’ Real Estate Capital Markets platform, much of which was spent in the firm’s Structured Finance Group, originating bridge loans, mezzanine loans, preferred equity and JV equity investments.

    Mr. DeRose holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Business Management and a Master of Science in Finance from the University of Florida.
  • David Deutch
    David Deutch

    Co-Founder & President, Pinnacle

    David O. Deutch is Co-Founder & President of Pinnacle, a Miami-based full-service real estate development and construction company that builds high-quality workforce and market-rate housing across Florida. Deutch, who co-founded Pinnacle in 1997, is involved in the hands-on, day-to-day management of Pinnacle and its affiliates and oversees all facets of the business enterprise. Deutch brings to Pinnacle decades of experience in the multi-family housing market.
  • Lesley Deutch
    Lesley Deutch

    Managing Principal, John Burns Research and Consulting

    Lesley Deutch is a Managing Principal based in Florida for John Burns Research and Consulting. She has more than 25 years of experience consulting with executives in the finance and real estate industries. She works across a wide spectrum of sectors including apartments, for-sale housing, high-rise development, urban projects, single-family rental, building products and commercial developments. Previously, Lesley was Vice President in the Global Real Estate division of Deutsche Bank in New York, where she authored reports on real estate and economic conditions in the major U.S. metropolitan areas and wrote due diligence reports for RREEF (owned by Deutsche Bank) acquisitions across the country. Lesley is an outspoken leader in the real estate industry and her expertise has led to numerous speaking engagements at national and local events on topics ranging from strategic repositioning, real estate forecasts, and demographic trends. Currently, Lesley leads the national consulting organization of John Burns Research and Consulting and well as serving as a member of the Multifamily Development Council for ULI in Florida, FSU Real Estate Board, and the University of Miami MRED+U Advisory Board. Ms. Deutch graduated from the Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania.
  • Jeffrey F. DiModica
    Jeffrey F. DiModica

    CFA President & Managing Director, Starwood Property Trust

    Jeffrey F. DiModica, CFA, has been the Company’s President since 2014 and served as an external director of the Company from its inception in 2009 to July 2014. In his current role he leads and serves as a member of the investment committee of each of the Company’s business lines including Large Loan Lending, Residential Lending, Infrastructure Lending, Property Investing and Investing & Serving which have a collective $28 billion of assets under management.

    From 1993 to 2014, Mr. DiModica served in various investment banking roles at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Merrill Lynch. Mr. DiModica began his career in the Merchant and Investment Banking Group of the Commercial Real Estate Department at Chemical Bank from 1989 to 1991.

    Mr. DiModica received a B.S./B.A. degree with distinction and a concentration in Finance from Boston University in 1989, an M.B.A. degree from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College in 1993, and received his Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1995. Mr. DiModica is a member of YPO (Young Presidents Organization) and serves on the Miami Advisory Board of the Posse Foundation, an organization that identifies, recruits and trains individuals with extraordinary leadership potential who are awarded full-tuition scholarships. Mr. DiModica was also the founding president of www.Mitoaction.org, a support, education and advocacy group for families affected by Mitochondrial Disease.

    Mr. DiModica was honored to be ranked in Commercial Observer’s “The 50 Most Important Figures of Commercial Real Estate Finance” list for the last 8 years, ranking in the top 10 the past 5 years.
  • Sydne Garchik
    Sydne Garchik

    Principal, MRK Partners

    Sydne Garchik is a highly accomplished and driven real estate professional with a proven track record in property investment, development, and management. Sydne has demonstrated expertise in affordable housing preservation, multi-family real estate acquisitions, and community-focused initiatives. Sydne is adept at fostering strategic partnerships and delivering exceptional results.

    In 2015 Sydne established MRK Partners, a prominent real estate investment and management firm specializing in the acquisition, repositioning, preservation, and creation of affordable multi-family properties across the nation.

    Sydne presently oversees a substantial portfolio comprising approximately 3,900 units and 23 properties, 406 of which are new units under construction or in predevelopment. Sydne also provided development consulting services and oversaw the financing of a $478 million-dollar mixed-use development in Miami, FL with 578 affordable units in 2021.
  • Read Hayes
    Dr. Read Hayes

    Director, Loss Prevention Research Council, University of Florida

    Dr. Read Hayes started as a store detective in retail loss prevention and has over 30 years of hands-on crime and loss control experience working with organizations worldwide. Read directs the Wertheim College of Engineering’ SaferPlaces Lab at the University of Florida, and is the Director of the 435 corporate member retailer-supplier coalition Loss Prevention Research Council. Dr. Hayes’ co-founded the University of Florida’s globally used National Retail Security Survey in 1989 and has conducted over 225 public safety research projects. He has spoken at over 100 conferences and is the author of over 25 peer-reviewed journal articles, 200 magazine articles, and four top selling books. Dr Hayes provides crime prevention expertise to FoxNews, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, Oprah, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, Forbes, Fast Company, Financial Times, USA Today and the BBC.
  • Robert Klein
    Robert Klein

    Robert Klein, Chief Financial Officer, Postal Realty Trust

    Robert Klein is the Chief Financial Officer of Postal Realty Trust (NYSE: PSTL) and leads financial planning and reporting along with contributing to the strategic growth of the business. Mr. Klein has extensive experience in corporate finance, capital markets and real estate operations stemming from his 25-year career where he completed over $30 billion in real estate principal investments and corporate transactions. He joined PSTL in 2021 after serving as a Managing Partner and Head of Capital Markets at Monday Properties Services, LLC where he led the strategic growth of the firm. Before his time with Monday Properties, Mr. Klein worked in various roles, including most recently as a Managing Director, in the Real Estate Advisory Group at Evercore Group L.L.C. and advised public and private companies and special committees on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic partnerships, portfolio acquisitions and sales, restructuring transactions, IPOs and strategic alternatives. Prior to joining Evercore, Mr. Klein held positions with MJC Associates LLC, Reckson Associates, Goldman, Sachs & Co., and Bankers Trust. Mr. Klein is on the Executive Committee of the University of Florida’s Bergstrom Center Advisory Board and a member of NAREIT. He graduated from the University of Florida Honors Program with a Bachelor of Science in Business and received his M.B.A. from Columbia Business School.
  • David Leon
    David Leon

    Partner, Nelson Mullins

    David Leon, CPA, Esq. is the leader of the Nelson Mullins Affordable Housing Industry Group. David has spent over 27 years representing developers of tax credit and affordable housing properties across the nation, working on every aspect of the transaction. From tax-exempt bonds to LIHTC credits, using financing from HUD, GSE lenders, VA/Military, USDA, CDBG funds, TIF funds, while blending in historic tax credits, energy credits, new market tax credits, opportunity zones, and twinning transactions, etc., David has a deep depth of experience in the industry. David and his team close over a billion dollars a year in LIHTC and Exempt Bond transactions, and enjoy helping clients create safe, decent, affordable homes for families, seniors, and veterans who otherwise may not be able to afford a place to live.
  • David Ling
    David Ling

    David C. Ling, Ken and Linda McGurn Chair, Professor of Real Estate, Director of the Master of Science in Real Estate, University of Florida

    David Ling is the Ken and Linda McGurn Chair, Professor of Real Estate, and Director of the Nathan S. Collier Master of Science in Real Estate (MSRE) program in the Department of Finance at the University of Florida. He teaches courses in real estate finance and investment at the graduate level as well as the undergraduate real estate principles course. Professor Ling’s research publications include articles on REITs, private commercial real estate investments–including closed-end funds, performance evaluation, Section 1031 exchanges, and commercial mortgage markets and pricing. His research has been published in the leading field journals in finance and economics, as well as the leading real estate focused journals. Having been used at over 250 universities worldwide, his textbook (co-authored with Wayne Archer) titled Real Estate Principles: A Value Approach (7th ed.) is the most widely used principles of real estate textbook at U.S. business schools. In recent years, he has also held part-time appointments at the University of Cambridge, the University of Reading, the National University of Singapore, and the Swedish School of Economics.
  • Greg Lukianoff
    Greg Lukianoff

    President, CEO, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)

    Greg Lukianoff is an attorney, New York Times best-selling author, and the President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). He is the author of The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure with Jonathan Haidt, Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate, Freedom From Speech, and FIRE’s Guide to Free Speech on Campus. Most recently, he co-authored The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust, Destroys Institutions, and Threatens Us All with Rikki Schlott. Greg is also an Executive Producer of Can We Take a Joke? (2015), a feature-length documentary that explores the collision between comedy, censorship, and outrage culture, both on and off campus, and of Mighty Ira: A Civil Liberties Story (2020), an award-winning feature-length film about the life and career of former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser.

    Greg has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, and numerous other publications. He frequently appears on TV shows and radio programs, including the CBS Evening News, The Today Show, and NPR’s Morning Edition. He has testified before both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives about free speech issues on America’s college campuses.
  • David O'Reilly
    David O’Reilly

    Chief Executive Officer, Howard Hughes Holdings

    David O’Reilly is the Chief Executive Officer of Howard Hughes Holdings, responsible for driving the sustainable growth of the company’s assets and unlocking meaningful long-term value across the company’s portfolio. He previously served as the company’s President, and as its Chief Financial Officer—the role in which he joined The Howard Hughes Corporation in 2016.

    As the architect and leader of the company’s 2019 Transformation Plan, Mr. O’Reilly realized meaningful reductions in overhead, executed on the sale of non-core assets, and refocused the company on its highly profitable MPCs. His leadership has successfully positioned the company for growth, further diversifying HHC’s funding sources and increasing its liquidity to enable to company to pursue value-creating opportunities.

    Prior to joining The Howard Hughes Corporation, Mr. O’Reilly served as Executive Vice President, Chief Investment Officer of Parkway Properties, a New York Stock Exchange-traded real estate investment trust focused on office properties. He served in the position from November 2011 through October 2014 and was appointed Chief Financial Officer in August 2012. He also served as the company’s Interim Chief Financial Officer from May 2012 through August 2012.

    Previously, Mr. O’Reilly served as Executive Vice President of Banyan Street Capital and as Director of Capital Markets for Eola Capital LLC. He served in the investment banking industry as Senior Vice President of Barclays Capital Inc. and in a similar capacity for Lehman Brothers. During his career, Mr. O’Reilly has been involved in a broad range of financial advisory and merger and acquisition activities, including leveraged buyouts, initial public offerings and single asset and pooled CMBS transactions.

    Mr. O’Reilly graduated from Tufts University with a B.S. in Civil Engineering and received his M.B.A. from Columbia University.
  • Rebecca Rockey
    Rebecca Rockey

    Deputy Chief Economist, Global Head of Forecasting, Cushman & Wakefield

    Rebecca Rockey is an economist and is the Deputy Chief Economics, Global Head of Forecasting at Cushman & Wakefield. In her role, she studies how economies, demographics, financial markets and commercial real estate interact—both at the macro and micro level. She is responsible for the production of national/metro-level commercial real estate forecasts for various property types across the Americas, develops predictive econometric and statistical models to enhance the firms’ analytical capabilities and contributes to numerous white papers, webinars, media requests and presentations. In her global role, she extends this expertise to other regions. She is certified by the International Institute of Forecasters and is a member of the American Economic Association and the National Association of Business Economists. In 2014, she was part of the forecast team that won the National Association of Business Economists Outlook Award (most accurate forecaster).

    She previously worked as a consultant at a finance/economics consulting firm engineering models to forecast loss reserves for a Fannie Mae’s single-family private-label MBS portfolio. Prior to that, she was a junior economist at the Congressional Budget Office in the Financial Analysis Division (FAD). There, she contributed to numerous analyses related to federal credit programs, accounting treatments of federal credit, and the treatment of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the federal budget. She was particularly focused on fair value estimation of federal direct lending and guarantee credit programs and contributed to FAD’s first comprehensive estimate—across more than 100 credit programs with a portfolio value of $3.1 trillion—for the Congress.

    She is frequently cited in the media, guest lectures at New York University and is an advisor to the NYC Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the DC Policy Center.
  • Brian Steinwurtzel
    Brian R. Steinwurtzel

    Co-CEO and Principal, GFP Real Estate

    Brian oversees all aspects of the company’s new investments, financing, leasing, asset management, development and project management.

    Noteworthy recent projects include the repositioning of 4 New York Plaza to 25 Water Street, 7 Hanover Square to 100 Pearl Street and 40 Exchange Place in the Financial District; 45-18 Court Square to Innolabs, 10-27 46th Avenue, 11-05 44th Drive, and 43-01 22nd Street in Long Island City; as well as 7 Bushwick Place and 285 North Sixth Street in Brooklyn. Brian led the redevelopment of 100 Crosby/560 Broadway and 1560 Broadway to class A retail and office properties in SOHO and Times Square, respectively, and led the repositioning of The Film Center building in Hell’s Kitchen.

    An active member of the community, Brian currently serves on the boards of Cooper Union, The Downtown Alliance, and Selfhelp Community Services Inc. Past board roles include Columbia Business School’s Real Estate Advisory Board and Real Estate Circle, the SoHo Broadway Initiative, East Midtown Business Improvement District and the Center for Family Representation.

    Brian received his Master of Business Administration degree from Columbia Business School and his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Washington University.
  • David Walsh
    David M. (Dave) Walsh

    Former CEO Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas, energy commentator

    Dave Walsh was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas, Inc. (MHPSA) on April 1, 2014, with responsibility for the combined Western Hemisphere electric power generation business of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Hitachi Ltd. of Japan. Mr. Walsh was the first non-Japanese corporate officer of MHPSA’s parent company, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, Ltd., in Japan. He was also the first American Board member of the America’s company, MHPSA. Prior to his appointment as President & CEO at MHPSA, Mr. Walsh had been the firm’s Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Projects, Engineering and Services. Mr. Walsh joined the company in 2001, and initially established the electric power generation service and manufacturing business for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in the Western Hemisphere.

    Previously, Mr. Walsh had been a senior executive at Westinghouse Electric Corporation in both power generation and industrial service roles as General Manager and Chairman of the Westinghouse global industrial and power generation service subsidiaries, with primary operations located in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Poland, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Singapore, Thailand and Australia. He later became General Manager of the power generation service business at Westinghouse, the Director of mergers & acquisitions for the power generation business unit, and served as the senior executive and Vice Chairman responsible for the five Westinghouse Electric power joint ventures in China, in partnership with the Shanghai Municipal Government and as well of a separate venture with the Chinese Ministry of Electric Power.

    Mr. Walsh retired from Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems in 2016, founding and acting as Managing Director of Takotagroup LLC. In that capacity Mr. Walsh serves as an advisor to various clients in the energy industry and related investment activity to firms such as Gryphon Investors, The Carlyle Group, Warburg Pincus, among other private equity and investment firms. Mr. Walsh presently serves on the Board of Irving Texas based Shermco Industries Inc, North America’s largest independent high voltage testing and electrical equipment services firm.

    Mr. Walsh received his BS Commerce degree from The University of Virginia; and did Graduate Study in Finance at The University of Pittsburgh and at The Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management. Mr. Walsh had previously been a Certified Public Accountant in The State of Pennsylvania.

    Mr. Walsh was appointed as Honorary Consul Japan, Central Florida, by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2017. He was an Enterprise Florida Board Member, the public private partnership for Florida Economic development; previously has been a Board Member of the Seminole County Foundation for Public Education, the Seminole State College of Florida Foundation Board, and a board member of Support Our Scholars. In 2016, Florida Governor Scott appointed Mr. Walsh to a five year term on the University of Central Florida (UCF) Board of Trustees, the US second largest University. Mr. Walsh served as Chairman of the Presidential Search Committee while a Trustee at UCF.

    Mr. Walsh received a Florida Governor’s job creation award in 2014 and he was the keynote speaker at the Power Generation International Conference in 2011 and in 2015. Mr. Walsh and his wife reside in the Central Florida area.

    Mr. Walsh is a frequent national media commentator on energy, and regular energy contributor on various nationally broadcast media.