Chris Meany is the managing partner of Wilson Meany, where he strives to develop real places that offer the kind of life we all aspire to, where we get to engage with one another in an authentic community. Communities under construction that Chris and his team are actively shaping include Treasure Island, Yerba Buena Island, Hollywood Park, and Bay Meadows. Notable completed projects include the Ferry Building, the Flood Building and 140 New Montgomery. Chris is a California native and a graduate of Georgetown University. He currently splits his time between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Alexa Arena, Executive Vice President, is responsible for leading and growing Lendlease’s development

capabilities throughout the California market, pursuing and identifying urban regeneration projects, as well as supporting the development efforts nationally. Prior to joining Lendlease, Alexa ran Forest City’s Northern California office serving as Senior Vice President. Under her leadership the Company grew a pipeline of major mixed-use projects. She had over 6 million square feet of residential, office and retail space in development and completed hundreds of housing units. Two of these high profile projects include the 5M Project, the largest private SOMA up-zoning in San Francisco’s history, and Pier 70, a 30 acre public-private partnership with the Port of San Francisco. At Forest City she likewise partnered with Westfield on building out Bespoke in our San Francisco Center; a model for co-working and product marketing in a retail environment. She is deeply

knowledgeable around products that serve the tech sector and the creative class in cities, and has pioneered several models in San Francisco to that end.

Alexa received her MBA from the Harvard Business School, her MPA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and her Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies, Sociology and Political Science from Columbia University. At HBS she wrote a case study on the financial consequence of political risk, which is continuously used across real estate programs and business schools nationally. She was recognized as one of The Most Influential Women in Business on years, and Top 40 under 40 by the San Francisco Business Times. Additionally, Alexa currently serves on several cultural and economic boards including SPUR, a leading civic planning organization focused on developing solutions to urban issues, United Playaz, a local non-profit for youth development and job training, the Museum of Craft and Design, Lamda Alpha and UC Berkely’s Fisher Center Policy Advisory Board.

Sarah Karlinsky is an expert in housing and land use policy. She has led the publication of numerous SPUR policy reports, including A New Transit-First Neighborhood for San Francisco, Affordable By Design, Secrets of San Francisco, Defining What San Francisco Needs From Its Seismic Mitigation Policies, Safe Enough to Stay, On Solid Ground, Taking Down a Freeway to Reconnect a Neighborhood and Historic Preservation in San Francisco: Making the Preservation Process Work for Everyone. From 2009 to 2014, Sarah served as SPUR’s deputy director, where she was responsible for managing SPUR’s policy and public engagement efforts. From 2005 to 2009, Sarah was SPUR’s policy director, staffing all of SPUR’s housing and land use work. Prior to joining SPUR, Sarah developed affordable housing throughout the Bay Area with Mid-Pen Housing, one of the largest nonprofit developers of affordable housing in the Bay Area. She has served on the boards on many Bay Area nonprofits, including Community Housing Partnership, TransForm and Urban Ecology, and has taught land use planning at San Francisco State University. Sarah began her career teaching urban planning to middle school students as a Teach for America corps member in Baltimore, Maryland. She received her Master’s degree in public policy and urban planning from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University She is the author of Smart Growth and Community Development Corporations: Putting Policy into Practice, published by the National Reinvestment Corporation and the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. Sarah holds a BA in history from Columbia University.