Pathways To Inclusion in Real Estate: Teaching Digital Tools to the Leaders of Tomorrow

Cedric Bobo is the CEO and Co-founder of Project Destined, a social impact vehicle that trains urban youth and military veterans to be owners and stakeholders in the communities in which they live, work and play. Prior to founding Project Destined, Cedric spent over 20 years as an investor and investment banker including over 10 years at The Carlyle Group where he committed over $2 Billion of equity capital. In 2015, Cedric was named to the “10 Top Powerful Black People on Wall Street You Should Know.” Prior to Carlyle, he worked at D.L.J. Merchant Banking (London) and McCown De Leeuw. He is the co-founder of Charter Board Partners, a non-profit focused on governance in the charter school sector. He also serves on the District of Columbia’s Office of Public Charter School Financing and Support Credit Committee and Beauvoir, The National Cathedral Elementary School. Cedric received his MBA from Harvard Business School and a BSME, summa cum laude from the University of Tennessee.

Willy Walker is consistently recognized as one of the most influential executives in the United States commercial real estate finance industry. He joined the company in 2003 as executive vice president and chief operating officer and became chief executive officer in 2007. Under Mr. Walker’s leadership, Walker & Dunlop has grown from a small, family-owned business with one office and forty-six employees to become one of the largest commercial real estate finance companies in the United States with twenty-five offices and over five hundred employees. Walker & Dunlop has been named one of the "50 Fastest Growing Companies" in the Washington Region every year since 2011, named a "Great Places to Work" in 2012, 2013 and 2015, and named a “Top Workplace” by the Washington Post in 2014 and 2016. Investors in Walker & Dunlop’s IPO saw their stock appreciate 191% in the company’s first five years as a public company. Mr. Walker won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2011. Prior to joining Walker & Dunlop, Mr. Walker was president of the European and Latin American divisions of TeleTech, a global business process outsourcing company. He previously worked at private equity firm Newbridge Latin America, and was also general manager of a regional airline start-up in Argentina. He currently serves on the boards of the Mortgage Bankers Association, the Federal City Council, the Sustainable Technology Fund, and St. Albans School. Mr. Walker was Chairman of the Board of the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water) from 2008 until 2012, and Chairman of the Board of Transcom, a global business process outsourcing company, from 2007 until 2012. Mr. Walker received his Bachelor of Arts degree from St. Lawrence University and Master’s degree in Business Administration from Harvard University. He has run the Boston Marathon in 2:36, is an avid cyclist, and can likely be found on the ski slopes of Sun Valley when not running Walker & Dunlop.