Bill Rudin joined the family real estate business in 1979, after graduating from New York University’s School of Business and Public Administration with a Bachelor of Science degree. Bill’s grandfather, Samuel Rudin, founded Rudin Management Company in 1925. In December of 1993, Bill was appointed President of the company.

Bill worked closely with his family – his father Lewis, uncle Jack, and his cousins and sister – alongside the dedicated professionals at Rudin Management Company to manage the Rudin portfolio. The portfolio includes 17 office buildings comprising more than 10 million square feet of Class-A space and 20 luxury apartment buildings. Bill has been intimately involved with every major development the Rudin family built since 1979, including 560 Lexington Avenue, 40 East 52nd Street, 1675 Broadway, 3 Times Square, and 32 Avenue of the Americas. Bill puts his own personal mark on the family business, giving new life to existing properties through conversion to technology-smart buildings and helping lead the turnaround of Lower Manhattan.

In carrying on the Rudin family tradition of hands-on personal management, Bill not only embraced his family responsibilities, but like his grandfather, father, and uncle, is actively involved in New York City’s political, civic, and philanthropic life. Bill serves on the board of The Association for a Better New York (ABNY), an organization co-founded by his father over 30 years ago. ABNY is a coalition of business, labor, and political leaders created in the 1970s to help make New York City a better place to live, work, and visit.

Bill serves as Chairman of The Battery Conservancy and The Real Estate Board of New York; he is also the former Chairman of The Real Estate Roundtable. He is a Board Member of the following organizations: The Partnership for New York City, The Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York University, The New York Center for Autism, The Alliance for Downtown New York, and The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation. Bill is also a member of The Economic Club of New York, The Council on Foreign Relations, and The New York City Marathon Committee.

In addition to lecturing at various educational institutions and real estate industry functions, Bill has appeared on many televised shows to discuss real estate and issues that impact New York City.

Bill resides in Manhattan with his wife Ophelia, his grown children, Samantha and Michael, and their respective spouses, David and Sabrina. He is a grandfather of two.

Steven Witkoff is Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of the firm, which he founded in 1997. With his extensive experience in all aspects of the development process, from financing and acquisitions through construction, he has successfully led the repositioning of over 70 properties comprising some 18 million square feet in major central business districts in the U.S. and abroad.

Before founding the firm, Mr. Witkoff co-founded Stellar Management Company, where he acquired and repositioned a portfolio of residential buildings in New York City. Prior to Stellar Management Company, Mr. Witkoff practiced as an attorney in real estate law at Dreyer & Traub and Rosenman & Colin, where he represented a number of large developers and investors.

Mr. Witkoff earned a J.D. from Hofstra University. He has served on the Executive Committee for the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) as a trustee for the Intrepid Foundation, and as a board member for the Jeffrey Modell Foundation. Mr. Witkoff currently serves as Chairman of the University of Miami Business School Real Estate Advisory Board and is a member of the Hofstra University Board of Trustees. He is a widely sought-after public speaker on trends in global real estate.

Jeff DeBoer is the founding President and CEO of The Real Estate Roundtable. The Real Estate Roundtable represents the leadership of the nation’s top 150 privately owned and publicly-held real estate ownership development, lending and management firms, as well as the elected leaders of the 17 major national real estate industry trade associations. Collectively, Roundtable members’ portfolios contain over 5 billion square feet of office, retail and industrial properties valued at more than $1 trillion; over 1.5 million apartment units; and nearly 2 million hotel rooms.

Mr. DeBoer has served as President and CEO of The Real Estate Roundtable since 1997, and through a variety of positions, he has been at the forefront of legislation affecting the real estate industry during the last thirty years.

In addition to his position at the Roundtable, Mr. DeBoer serves as Chairman of the Real Estate Industry Information Sharing and Analysis Center (RE-ISAC), an organization dedicated to enhancing communication between the industry and federal policymakers on matters relating to building security, terrorist threats, and incident reporting. He also serves as chairman of the National Real Estate Organizations, a coalition of real estate trade associations working to enhance the industry’s overall Washington advocacy efforts. Previously he served as co-chairman of the Advisory Board of the RAND Corporation’s Center for Terrorism Risk Management Policy, and was a founding member of the steering committee of the Coalition to Insure Against Terrorism (CIAT). Mr. DeBoer also serves on the Advisory Board of the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, DC.

Mr. DeBoer has discussed real estate and economic policy issues on FOX News, Bloomberg Television and CNBC; and his editorials have been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. In 2010, Mr. DeBoer was named a “top 10 Industry Newsmaker of the Decade” by GlobeSt.com and in 2013 he was selected by Commercial Property Executive as one of the "30 most influential people in real estate".

He is a member of the Virginia Bar Association and the American Bar Association. Mr. DeBoer holds degrees from Washington and Lee University School of Law and from Yankton College.

W. Edward (Ed) Walter, a widely renowned real estate industry leader and most recently the Steers Chair in Real Estate at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, is the Global Chief Executive Officer of the Urban Land Institute (ULI), a global real estate organization with more than 40,000 members dedicated to responsible land use and creating thriving communities. Walter joined ULI’s executive team in June 2018.

As the Global CEO, Walter leads the implementation of ULI’s Global Strategic Plan, which includes delivering greater member value through technology investments to improve member connections and involvement with ULI; strengthening and broadening ULI’s member networks; and encouraging more philanthropic giving to expand ULI’s reach. The multi-year plan strives to strengthen member engagement and expand member impact in each of the three regions in which ULI has a presence – the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific.

Walter brings to ULI more than 35 years of management experience in the real estate profession across a variety of disciplines including hotels, multifamily, and land development, with a strong emphasis on capital markets and investments. From 2007 through 2016, he served as Chief Executive Officer, President and Director of Host Hotels and Resorts, Inc., where he led a $19 billion-plus global lodging real estate investment trust (REIT) with a high-performing portfolio of more than 110 hotels around the world. Prior to becoming Host’s CEO, he served as the company’s Chief Financial Officer for more than four years and served in other executive roles at Host for seven years prior to being named the CFO. Walter’s service at Host overlapped with his four-year tenure at Georgetown, where he created and taught the Real Estate Public Equity course, which is designed to explore multiple aspects of REITs.

Before coming to Host, Walter served as an executive for several real estate organizations, including Bailey Capital Corporation in Washington, D.C., where he originated and restructured portfolios of multifamily assets; ZOM Communities in Orlando, Florida, where he worked in land development and sales, and multifamily development; and Trammell Crow Residential, where he was a partner in a number of developments.

Walter’s industry volunteer leadership experience is equally expansive, including roles at the Real Estate Roundtable (he currently co-chairs RER’s Research Committee); National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (he chaired NAREIT from 2012-2013); and the American Hotel and Lodging Association, which he helped guide through a strategic planning process while chairing its CEO Council. He is an active member and current chairman of the Federal City Council, a non-profit, non-partisan council of business, professional, education and civic leaders focused on solutions to urban growth challenges faced by the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region. He is a Board member at Avalon Bay Communities and Ameriprise Financial. Previously, he was an active member of the National Kidney Foundation, having served as its Board Chairman, a National Director, and a member of its Executive Committee. He also served in leadership positions for the Foundation’s National Capital Area affiliate organization.

Holly Leicht is Executive Vice President of Real Estate Development & Planning at Empire State Development, overseeing the planning and disposition of New York State’s surplus properties and ESD’s subsidiary development corporations. Previously she served in the Obama Administration as the Regional Administrator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in Region 2, presiding over the agency’s activities in New York and New Jersey, including $6 billion in affordable housing and other urban development programs and over $15 billion in Superstorm Sandy recovery funds.

Holly led the implementation of the region’s winning Rebuild by Design and National Disaster Resilience Competition projects, and after the Obama Administration ended, she wrote a report entitled Rebuild the Plane Now: Recommendations for Improving Government’s Approach to Disaster Recovery and Preparedness. Prior to her appointment at HUD, Leicht was the Executive Director of New Yorkers for Parks (NY4P), a research-based advocacy organization championing quality public spaces for all New Yorkers in all neighborhoods.

She previously held positions at the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), most recently as the Deputy Commissioner for Development; the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC); and the Municipal Art Society. Leicht began her legal career in Real Estate Finance at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. She grew up in St. Louis and graduated magna cum laude from Yale College and cum laude from Northwestern University School of Law.

Leslie Wohlman Himmel is founder and co-managing partner of Himmel + Meringoff Properties, a leading owner/operator of New York-based commercial real estate and one of the only privately owned, first generation portfolios of Manhattan office buildings. Founded in 1985 with partner Stephen Meringoff, Himmel + Meringoff currently manages two million square feet of commercial real estate valued in excess of $2 billion.

Ms. Himmel began her career as an acquisitions associate at Integrated Resources in 1979 and is today recognized as one of the foremost women leaders of the commercial real estate industry. Focused on creating value through long-term ownership, she is a creative and insightful hands-on owner responsible for the acquisition of property, strategic repositioning of assets and portfolio financing.

In 2017, Ms. Himmel was named as one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in New York by Crain’s. She was honored as Harvard Business School Club of New York’s ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ for 2016 and, in 2011, received REBNY’s Mendik Lifetime Leadership in Real Estate Award for exceptional accomplishment and dedication to leadership in New York real estate.

Ms. Himmel is a Board member of the M&T Bank Directors Advisory Council, New York City Mortgage Committee and the Harvard Business School Club of New York. In 1992, she founded and continues to co-chair REBNY’s Economic Development Committee which works with New York City officials to support economic development initiatives in the city. A member of REBNY’s Board of Governors since 2001, Ms. Himmel also serves on the Board of the Executive Committee. Ms. Himmel is a member of the Real Estate Roundtable, the UDMUC Red Council of the Urban Land Institute, Young Men’s/Women’s Real Estate Association of New York and YPO/WPO.

Dedicated to women entrepreneurs, Ms. Himmel established “The Women’s Student Association Fellowship Fund” in 2008, which awards scholarships to Harvard Business School students. Ms. Himmel is also an early stage investor and Board advisor to Hello Alfred, a successful online concierge service, developed by two women who are recent HBS graduates.

Ms. Himmel earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, graduating Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa and received her MBA with high honors from Harvard Business School.

Steven L. Lichtenfeld is co-head of Proskauer’s market-leading Real Estate Capital Markets and Real Estate Finance Groups and a founding member of our Private Equity Real Estate Group. He regularly advises real estate funds, REITs, sovereign wealth funds, institutional lenders, specialty lenders, hedge funds, and pension advisors regarding public offerings and private placements of real estate-related debt and equity securities, real estate-related mergers and acquisitions, real estate preferred equity investments and joint ventures, real estate-related senior and mezzanine financings and other corporate, partnership and limited liability company matters.

Steven has been widely recognized as a driving force in the real estate capital markets and finance space during his more than thirty-five year career. He has garnered several prestigious accolades in this area, including receiving a coveted ranking from Chambers USA, which has described him as “a brilliant real estate attorney with experience in many asset classes.” Chambers has also described Steven as “highly analytical and highly strategic” and “encyclopedic in terms of his knowledge” in handling a broad spectrum of public and private debt offerings, M&A, joint venture and other corporate real estate matters. Steven is also recommended for Real Estate and REITs by Legal 500 United States and is consistently recognized as a leading real estate lawyer in Best Lawyers in America and Super Lawyers.

Steven has a unique skill set that allows him to quarterback a broad spectrum of transactions including public REIT offerings (both traded and non-traded), real estate mergers and acquisitions, real estate preferred equity investments and joint ventures and real estate recapitalizations and reorganizations.

Steven also counsels his public REIT and other clients on a broad range of corporate, securities and business-related matters, including directors’ duties and responsibilities and other aspects of corporate governance, disclosure issues and compliance matters as well as defensive measures and takeover tasks.

Steven is a prolific author and speaker, having penned numerous articles and lectured before dozens of organizations throughout the country on various real estate capital markets, real estate private equity and real estate finance topics. Steven is also a member of the Board of Spark Youth NYC (f/k/a The Catalog for Giving) and is active on his Urban Land Institute council, UDMUC Bronze.

l Price School of Public Policy and the Marshall School of Business.

Prior to joining the USC faculty, Dr. Green spent four years as the Oliver T. Carr, Jr., Chair of Real Estate Finance at The George Washington University School of Business. He was Director of the Center for Washington Area Studies and the Center for Real Estate and Urban Studies at that institution. Dr. Green also taught real estate finance and economics courses for 12 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was Wangard Faculty Scholar and Chair of Real Estate and Urban Land Economics. He also has been principal economist and director of financial strategy and policy analysis at Freddie Mac. More recently, he was a visiting professor of real estate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and he continues to retain an affiliation with Wharton. He is or has been involved with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, the Conference of Business Economists, the Center for Urban Land Economics Research, and the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties. Dr. Green also is a Weimer Fellow at the Homer Hoyt Institute, and a member of the faculty of the Selden Institute for Advanced Studies in Real Estate. He was recently President of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

Ja’Ron Smith is currently Deputy Assistant to the President (Office of American Innovation) and previously served as a Special Assistant to the President for the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. As a Special Assistant to the President, Ja’Ron is the President’s liaison to the United States House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, Agriculture Committee, Education and

Workforce Committee, Homeland Security Committee, Congressional Black Caucus, and

Congressional Hispanic Caucus. In this role, Ja’Ron is instrumental in policy negotiations and

remains a catalyst in policy reform. Ja’Ron’s leadership and expertise have been exemplified

through the imperative roles that he played in national issues such as the Opportunity Zones Act

and the First Step Act. Ja’Ron’s leadership was integral to the bills’ success; from their inception to

their implementation. Mr. Smith is often sought after by professionals nationwide for his

perspectives on these and other national initiatives.

Prior to serving as the Special Assistant to the President in the Office of Legislative Affairs, Ja’Ron

served as a Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and served as the Director of

Urban Affairs and Revitalization. In this capacity, he was a chief policy strategist, an advisor to the

President, along with serving as a manager of HBCU initiatives, crime and reentry, and the manager

of the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative.

A policy and congressional connoisseur, Mr. Smith has played a dynamic role in policy development

and social change in the D.C. Metropolitan Area through his service in the non-profit and political

sectors. His extensive knowledge and ability have proven an invaluable asset to Congressmen

Scalise, Jordan, and Hensarling, along with Senator Scott and prior Chairman Mike Pence; all of

whom Ja’Ron served during his career.

As evidenced by his personal and professional commitments, Mr. Smith has been a longtime

advocate for economic development, crime prevention, entrepreneurship, and workforce

development. Ja’Ron Smith was most recently awarded the 2020 Bipartisan Justice Award.

Ja’Ron is a graduate of Howard University School of Business and Howard University School of

Divinity.

Kenneth Weissenberg is a Tax Partner and Co-Partner-in-Charge of the Real Estate Services Group. His extensive experience encompasses all aspects of the real estate industry, ranging from developing tax saving strategies for owning and operating property to structuring and negotiating complex sales, acquisitions, and financing transactions. Ken has been involved in over $50 billion of real estate transactions over the last 30 years. Providing expert insight from both the legal and business perspectives, Ken consults with a variety of public and private REITs on tax planning and compliance issues ,including REIT formations, property contributions, and mergers and acquisitions. He serves a diverse client base that includes privately held and publicly traded real estate companies as well as prominent hotel and hospitality entities and world-renowned restaurants. Ken has also served as an expert witness and arbitrator in a number of complex litigations involving real estate issues. He represents the owners of some of the most well-known properties in New York City. For more than 20 years, Ken has also been a leader in developing tax and advisory services for same-sex couples and families. He serves as the National Leader of the LGBT and Alternative Family Services Group. He assists with tax issues facing high net worth individuals, trust and estate planning and the impact of tax laws effecting both LGBT couples and the businesses where they work. Additionally, Ken is a frequent writer and speaker on topics for various professional groups and news organizations.