Maria G. Gotsch is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Partnership Fund for New York City (www.pfnyc.org), which is the investment arm of the Partnership for New York City. The Fund, which has invested over $170 million, has built a network of top experts from the investment and corporate communities who help identify and support New York City’s most promising entrepreneurs in both the for-profit and non-for profit sectors. In addition to leading the Fund’s operations, Maria has spearheaded the creation and operation of a number of the Fund’s strategic initiatives, including: FinTech Innovation Lab; New York Digital Health Accelerator; Transit Tech Lab; NY Fashion Tech Lab; NYCSeed (seed financing for IT/digital media companies); BioAccelerate Prize NYC (proof-of-concept funding for university-based biomedical research); Arts Entrepreneurial Loan Fund (low cost loans for mid-size arts groups); and ReStart Central and Financial Recovery Fund (assistance and funding for small businesses impacted by 9/11/01).

Prior to joining the Fund in 1999, Maria was a Managing Director at BT Wolfensohn (now part of Deutsche Bank), providing strategic and financial advice related to mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures and the development of business strategies. Before starting with Wolfensohn, Maria worked at LaSalle Partners in the New York area and for Merrill Lynch Capital Markets in New York and London. Maria has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Wellesley College. She was also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to study international relations at the Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva, Switzerland.

Maria also is a member of the boards of Sonepar USA Holdings and the New York Venture Capital Association; serves on the audit committee of Sonepar S.A.; and, serves on the advisory boards of ProPublica (investigative journalism non-profit), Schools That Can, Columbia University’s Lang Fund and Hospital for Special Surgery Innovation Advisory Council.

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.

An architect by training, Sally has a reputation for bringing great creativity, innovation and attention to detail to every project she works on, including some of HDR’s most high-profile education, science, workplace, and mixed-use projects around the globe. In her role as Education & Science leader, she directs and executes regional project leadership, strategic planning and business development efforts to help life science corporations and developers achieve their missions and goals.

Scott Metzner founded Janus in 1989. In that time,

he has been deeply involved as a developer in Harlem's

public policy and community development goals. Prior

to his New York projects, he was active in national

real estate markets and international capital markets

through leadership positions at Eastdil Realty, Roseland

Property Company and Daiwa Securities America.

He has served on the Executive Committee of the board

of Phipps Houses (New York's largest affordable housing

developer and owner), was a member on the board of

Phipps Neighborhoods and is Co-Chair of the board of

the Tenement Museum. He received an MBA from

Columbia University and a BArch from the University

of Maryland.

Ed Jaram joined King Street at the start of 2019 to manage project execution in New York and the surrounding markets, and has nearly 20 years’ experience in construction and real estate, both in the US and the UK. Before joining King Street, he ran the in-house construction company for a Manhattan-based developer performing both ground-up and renovation projects, delivering over 1,000,000 sq ft of construction in a three-year period. Before that, he worked for 10 years for Gardiner & Theobald – one of the largest independently-held construction consultancies in the world – and delivered projects with a total value of over $1bn in London, Los Angeles and New York, for clients including the WPP Advertising group, BioMed Realty, and The Dorchester Collection hotel company.

Yasmeen Ahmed Pattie has 20+ years of relationship building and project

management experience in life sciences, real estate, and economic development.

Yasmeen works with small biotechs to find and plan new spaces and with public tax

incentives. She also advises organizations on development and planning initiatives.

Projects include; The Long Island City Partnership’s life sciences feasibility study, Guiding Biolabs@NYULangone tenants through START-UP NY, Accessing $6.5M in city and state funding for Celmatix and Quentis, NYCEDC’s Life Science Infrastructure Initiative, the precursor to its $500M LifeSciNYC program.

Yasmeen was employee #2 at the New York Genome Center, overseeing site selection, design and construction, and fit-out of their new 170,000-sf home; she also helped obtain private and public funding. Before NYGC she worked in incentives consulting and at NYCEDC, where she was the lead project manager for the Alexandria Center for Life Science.