Toronto State of the Market

Marianne Lefever is an architect with over 10 years of experience in climate mitigation and sustainable city design in Europe and North-America. After an exciting career as a structural engineer, renewable energy consultant, innovation consultant, and futurist, she returned to her first love of sustainable city design. As a managing partner at Healthy City Global, she is currently transforming cities around the globe into healthy environments and communities. The company uses data analytics to understand how a certain location is impacting our well-being and how we can improve it. Their spatial design guidelines combine efforts on sustainability and well-being to improve well-being and pool financial resources. Marianne is also a thought provoking public speaker. She has spoken at TEDx conferences in LA and the Toronto area as well as private corporate events. After living all over the globe, she landed in Toronto.

Amal joined Multiplex in 2018 as the company’s first Director of Digital Construction in North America. By connecting with architects, engineers, trades, commercial real estate professionals and building operators, Amal has helped strengthening Multiplex presence in the Canadian market as an innovative leader and has ensured Multiplex remains well positioned to evolve and adapt. She supports organizations such as the Canadian BIM Council and buildingSMART Canada, and is a board member of Toronto BIM Community, CTBUH Young Leaders, and a part of the professional advisory committees at Ryerson University and George Brown College. Previously, Amal was the Regional Director of a large global architecture, urban planning and interior design organization. With a sharp focus on growing both the digital capability and the global presence , Amal developed and implemented BIM on a global scale and spearheaded global digital delivery strategies for major large scale projects nationally and internationally. She was also responsible for the organization’s global process improvement initiative, resources management and global work sharing. Amal is an accomplished professional, a leader with more than 25 years of substantial design and construction experience, her portfolio of projects exceeds $2 billion in value and covers various market sectors, including healthcare, hospitality, mixed use and commercial high rise. At Multiplex, she is a major contributor to the company’s digital construction plans, project execution plans and works with the business development team on identifying new opportunities for projects and partnerships. Amal holds an Architectural Engineering degree, LEED AP designation and is certified in contract administration and Lean Six Sigma.

Glenn has 16 Years of real estate industry sales leadership experience. He recently joined Breather to oversee the sales organization, launch consultative initiatives on the role of flexible office in the mix of traditional real estate portfolios and to develop the broker program. Formerly, as president of Kastle Systems North East he ran team of 3 brands overseeing more than $25,000,000 in annual revenue. Prior to Kastle he was SVP/GM of William Raveis New York and Affiliates. There he created and lead a franchise division generating over $750M in gross annual sales.

Wendy joined Avesdo in July 2018 and now holds the position of COO. She has the responsibility of overseeing the day-to-day administrative and operational functions of a business. This includes customer-facing operations, staffing and finance. Wendy has over 15 years’ experience in financial and operational management. Prior to joining Avesdo, she served as a senior lead in multiple capacities, including Financial Planning, Financial Reporting, Audit & Controls, Operations and IT. The experience she gained in the various industries – healthcare, mining and utilities provides her with a broad operational and strategic perspective. She is a skilled change agent who delivers results by building and leading cohesive multi-disciplinary teams and effectively partnering with operations to facilitate periods of growth and change. Wendy holds a Hons Bachelor of Commerce, with a specialization in Accounting from McMaster University and the worked at KPMG LLP, where she gained her CPA, CA designation.

Lance spent four seasons as a linebacker with the Hamilton Tiger Cats, where during his first off season he began his career in commercial real estate. Today, Lance has over 30 years of real estate experience. He spent 14 years with Cushman Wakefield initially selling major redevelopment properties before becoming VP Investment Sales at the Canadian head office. After serving at Cushman, Lance joined Scotia Capital as Managing Director Investment Banking. In this position Lance was responsible to build and lead the real estate brokerage, advisory and debt activities of the real estate group in Scotia Capital. During this time Lance led the sale of investment portfolios, single asset sales, financings, sale-leasebacks and advised on fund raises, mergers and acquisitions in the Canadian commercial real estate market.

As Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, Bob oversees and manages daily operations at Diamond Corp. Bob is responsible for the creation and execution of land development strategies, acquisition activities, and leads the development approvals process for a number of key Diamond Corp. land assets, helping to position Diamond Corp. as an industry leader in city building. With over 28 years of land development experience, over the course of his career Bob has led teams in securing municipal approvals for over 60 major land development projects in the GTA, working with some of the industry’s foremost developers. In his commitment to social and professional responsibility, Bob has served on various industry land development committees, including the Board of Trade Development Committee, Board of Directors of the Home Builders’ Association (now BILD), and the Mayor’s Roundtable for the Environment. Bob is Co-Chair of Unity Charity’s Strategic Partnerships Committee, an organization that empowers at-risk youth through the arts. Bob created and implemented the student apprenticeship program for Ryerson University’s School of Urban and Regional Planning, to assist students in gaining workforce experience in the Planning industry.

Mrs. Lindsay Brand is Chief Investment Officer of Dream and she is responsible for all the investments and capital allocation across Dream Unlimited and Dream Hard Assets Alternatives Trust (DHATT). In addition to investments, Lindsay is responsible for the portfolio management for DHATT and management oversight for all of our partnership developments. Lindsay joined Dream in 2011 and has held various positions throughout the organization prior to her current role. She has worked on acquisitions and asset management for Dream Office, Dream Global, DHATT and now Dream Unlimited. Prior to joining Dream, Lindsay worked at CIBC in both corporate development and real estate finance. Lindsay graduated with distinction from the Honours Business Administration program at the Richard Ivey School of Business and also obtained her Master of Science of Real Estate Development in 2014 from Columbia University in New York City.

Over 30 years of experience as a builder in the Greater Toronto Area, Western University graduate Robert Cooper has completed a number of diverse real estate projects. With his service and dedication to the homebuilding and development industry in Ontario, he is the youngest individual to be presented with the prestigious Home Builders Association Lifetime Achievement Award as well as several industry awards for personal and project excellence.

Rodney McDonald is a Principal of Avison Young based at the company's global headquarters in Downtown Toronto. He is the Practice Leader of Consulting and Project Management Services in Ontario, leading a diverse team of professionals serving local, national and international clients. Rodney advises boards, executives and senior managers and his team’s services include real estate strategy, workplace strategy, space programming, project management, change management, and move management, working collaboratively with Avison Young’s other service lines. Rodney and his team work primarily with commercial office occupiers, including banks, insurance companies, investment management companies, law firms, tech companies, professional services, agricultural and food processors, industrial manufacturers, government and government agencies, non-profit organizations, and education.