Position: CEO, LIVWRK
Currently working on: Converting Brooklyn’s Watchtower complex with The Kushner Cos and RFR. The property, formerly owned by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, will transform into the tech-focused Dumbo Heights office campus by Q1 ’15.
Responsibilities: Design, development, marketing, branding, and leasing
How he got involved in Dumbo Heights: Left his former job at Two Trees Management and wanted to do a substantial, game-changing project. For years, he'd walk by and look up at the Watchtower complex. He approached the Jehovah’s Witnesses the same day he left Two Trees to see if they wanted to sell. They didn’t, but he knew if he put the right team together, they’d hear him out. He approached RFR’s Michael Fuchs and Jared Kushner. They envisioned a large, mixed-use tech campus, and they won the project.
Daily habit: Getting up and having breakfast with his kids, then going to synagogue to pray.
Favorite musician: Bob Dylan
Favorite song: Scorpions’ “Wind of Change”
Favorite movie: Forrest Gump
Favorite book: Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer
Favorite food: His wife’s and mom’s Moroccan cooking
Favorite vacation spot: Palm Desert, Calif.
Item on bucket list: Going on safari in South Africa
First job: A Mobil gas station in Los Angeles as a young teenager, where he did everything from pumping gas and checking tires to cleaning bathrooms and stocking shelves
Startling fact: Asher never went to college. He nabbed an internship with Miami-based developer Crescent Heights while still in high school, which turned into a full-time job after he graduated. He stayed there for five years, learning plenty along the way, then headed to New York to work for Two Trees.