12th Annual Real Estate Global Forum

Rohit Nerurkar, Principal and Head of US Real Estate, joined Mercer in 2016 and is based in New York. His responsibilities include overseeing a team that conducts research on North American real estate investment strategies, assisting clients with real estate portfolio construction and strategy, and helping lead the portfolio management of Mercer’s real estate solutions.

Prior to joining the Alternatives team in 2021, Rohit worked in Mercer’s Wealth Investment Consulting team, primarily with DB and DC clients assisting with ongoing performance evaluation, investment manager selection, investment structure review, and portfolio structure. Prior to joining Mercer in 2016, Rohit worked for Guy Carpenter, a subsidiary of Mercer’s parent company Marsh & McLennan Companies, in a corporate finance and strategy role.

Rohit holds a BA/BS in Finance and Economics from the University of Connecticut. He is also a CFA® charter holder and a CAIA® charterholder.

Biff is co-founder and member of CrossGrainFI and has worked with ultra high net worth families and multi-generational investment programs for more than two decades. He was previously a Partner with Kimble Advisory LLC, a boutique multi-family office, Senior Vice President and Senior Wealth Advisor at Keel Point, LLC, a large multi-family office and institutional wealth advisor, and Vice President of Non-Traditional Investments and Family Office Services with JoycePayne Partners, a fiduciary advisory firm. Before that, he managed a family investment and consulting company, was Senior Vice President for Financial and Risk Management Services at a petrochemical industry technology firm, and was General Counsel and Corporate Development Strategist for two Internet companies, one publicly traded and the other private. Biff also practiced international business law after beginning his career in public accounting and international private banking in New York City.

Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Dean S. Adler is CEO and Co-Founder of Lubert Adler Partners, L.P., a real estate equity firm with over $9 billion in equity raised since inception of the Firm. Dean is Head of the Investment Committee and is responsible for leading the strategic direction of the team.

Prior to Lubert Adler, Dean graduated magna cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds a J.D. degree with honors from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and was an instructor at the Wharton School between 1981 and 1983. Subsequently, he worked at Ernst & Young, Baker and Hostetler and CMS.

Currently, he is an Executive Committee Member and Research Sponsor for the Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center of The Wharton School and a member of the Board of Directors of the Dominion Real Estate Company.

In addition, Dean is a former member of the board of directors of Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ: BBBY), a former Director of Developers Diversified (NYSE: DDR), a former member of the board of directors of Safehold, Inc. (NASDAQ: SAFE), and a former member of the board of directors of Albertsons, LLC. He has been a keynote speaker for national real estate organizations such as the Urban Land Institute and the International Council of Shopping Centers. Dean has served on numerous community boards and has served on the City of Philadelphia's Economic Development. 

Ed Butowsky, managing partner of Chapwood Investments, LLC has the unique ability to recognize how current events affect investment portfolios. An internationally recognized expert in the investment wealth management and personal finance industry, he was featured in “Broke,” the critically acclaimed ESPN “30 for 30” documentary that chronicles professional athletes and their financial experiences, and in the most popular Sports Illustrated article ever: “How (and Why) Athletes Go Broke.” Celebrities and athletes count on Ed Butowsky to provide advice on everything from contract negotiations and agent disputes to family finances and how people with money can take steps to keep it. Ed Butowsky is a mentor to up-and-coming athletes and their parents, but it isn’t only public figures who seek his advice. Private individuals come to him in search of new strategies for their financial concerns. Ed is best known for his straight talk and his willingness to roll up his sleeves and find solutions to issues that others want no part of. His more than 29 years in the financial services industry began at Morgan Stanley, where he was a senior vice president in private wealth management. In his 18 years there, he was the firm’s top producer nationally as well as the first adviser to surpass $1 billion in assets under management. He was recognized as a member of both the Chairman’s Club and the Equity Club, distinctions reserved for only the top advisers at Morgan Stanley. In 2005, Ed launched Chapwood Investments, LLC, a private wealth management advisory firm that focuses on providing comprehensive financial counseling and investment advice to wealthy families and individuals. Under the management of Ed and his partner, Kim Sams, Chapwood Investments was awarded the 2015 Alternative Investment Award for Excellence in Investment Wealth Management – USA.

Kristin Dacey is Chief Investment Officer – Real Estate, Alternatives at Bulltick, which has a RIA and Broker Dealer. At Bulltick, she also acts as the fund manager of two real estate fund of funds primarily focused on the US market. Concurrently, she is the Chief Investment Officer for Emprenta, an impact investing group, and on the board for Convision 20/20, a social enterprise in Mexico. Previously, she spent 8 years in the private sector of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) contributing to over US$2.2 billion in alternatives investments. Kristin also worked for GE Capital for 7 years where she held progressing roles in credit, portfolio management, and account management participating in the structuring of over 70 real estate, equipment, cash flow and construction deals comprising over US$2 billion in volume. Kristin has a Masters from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, an MBA from Arizona State and BS and BA degrees from Virginia Tech. 

Michael serves as Chief Investment Officer of Mill Creek Capital Advisors, LLC and is a Principal of the firm. In his role, Michael leads the firm’s Investment Strategy and Communications business units. He is responsible for managing the investment team, overseeing manager due diligence, and asset allocation decisions.

Prior to joining Mill Creek, Michael was a Managing Director at UBS, where he headed the Investment Strategy team and was responsible for providing asset allocation and market advice to the firm’s clients.

Before joining UBS, he worked in various investments roles at Lehman Brothers and Barclays and as a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. Michael is a frequent commentator and invited speaker in TV and print financial media, including Bloomberg, CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Barron’s, and Business Insider. He has also served as an adjunct professor of economics and actively publishes his research in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Wealth Management, the Journal of Investing, and the Journal of Index Investing.

Michael graduated from the University of Georgia, earned a master’s degree in economics at NYU, and holds the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) designation. He currently volunteers as a mentor for veterans and college students. 

Pramit Mukherjee is a Senior Director, Investments, at Legal and General America, and manages US PRT and Protection portfolios. He leads research on new asset classes and executes investment strategies and structuring across multiple regulatory jurisdictions, including RBC, BSCR, and Solvency II. He focuses on deal origination, due diligence, and underwriting in alternative credit, infrastructure, and real estate, globally and cross-divisionally at Legal & General. Previously, he was a Senior Analyst and Portfolio Manager at Converge Re, the reinsurance business of Lightstone Group, where he led investment evaluation, due diligence, and portfolio management. At Converge Re, he focused on alternative credit and real estate investments for insurance portfolios in a capital efficient manner. Prior to Lightstone, he was an analyst and strategist at Goldman Sachs leading thematic equity research and portfolio strategy for institutional investors. At Credit Suisse, he advised leading global consumer & retail companies on M&A and IPO transactions valued at over $5 billion. He is a Board member of the Fixed Income Investor Network by IMN. Mr. Mukherjee received his MBA (Beta Gamma Sigma honorary) with distinction from New York University’s Stern School of Business. He graduated magna cum laude from the Indian Institute of Technology with an MS and BS in Industrial Engineering. 

Thompson Dean is the Chairman and Co-Head of Avista Capital Partners’ Investment Committee. He previously served as the Managing Partner and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Avista Capital Partners until transitioning to Chairman in 2022. Prior to co-founding Avista Capital Partners in 2005, Mr. Dean led DLJ Merchant Banking Partners for 10 years. Mr. Dean served as Managing Partner of DLJMB I, II and III and DLJ Growth Capital Partners until his departure in 2005 and was Chairman of their respective Investment Committees. Mr. Dean received a B.A. from the University of Virginia, where he was an Echols Scholar, and an M.B.A. with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. Mr. Dean currently serves as a Director of the Boards of Cooper Consumer Health, eMolecules, Probo Medical, Vision Healthcare and WellSpring Consumer Healthcare. He previously served on the Boards of Charles River Laboratories, ConvaTec Group (UK: CTEC), Fisher Scientific, Nycomed, Trimb, VWR, Acino, and Zest Dental Solutions, among others. He is Former Chairman of the Special Projects Committee of Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital and served as a member of the College Foundation Board of the University of Virginia.   

Brian Neale has over 20 years of institutional investment experience and currently is responsible for more than USD 3 billion of investable assets on behalf of the University of Nebraska Foundation. In this role, his principal duties include establishing long-term asset allocation policies and short-term tactical tilts, manager research and selection, portfolio construction, compliance and oversight. Brian holds an MBA from The College of William & Mary.

Dale R. Folwell, CPA was elected for his first term as State Treasurer of North Carolina in 2016. He was reelected in 2020 and is currently serving his second term responsible for 240 billion dollars which is nearly 8 times larger than the state budget. As the keeper of the public purse, Treasurer Folwell is responsible for the more than $115 billion state pension fund that provides retirement benefits for more than 950,000 teachers, law enforcement officers and other public workers. Under Folwell’s leadership the pension plan was rated among the top five best-funded in the country and won accolades for proactive management, efficiency and funding discipline and was recently ranked as the most efficient public plan in north America. In 2021, the state’s coveted AAA bond rating was reaffirmed by every major rating agency, making North Carolina one of only 13 states in the country to hold that distinction. Treasurer Folwell also oversees the State Health Plan, which provides medical and pharmaceutical benefits to more than 450,000 current and retired public employees and is the largest purchaser of health care in North Carolina.

Folwell was first elected to public office as a member of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of Education. He brought his problem-solving skills to the North Carolina General Assembly in 2004, where he served four terms in the House of Representatives including one term as Speaker Pro Tempore. In 2013, Folwell was named Assistant Secretary of Commerce and led a successful effort to pay off $2.7 billion in federal unemployment debt and build a $1 billion surplus in just 30 months. Treasurer Folwell began his career as a blue-collar worker and became a Certified Public Accountant and investment advisor after attending Winston-Salem State University and earning Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in accounting from UNC-Greensboro. Married for over 30 years, he and his wife Synthia have three children and live in Winston-Salem. 

Mr. Subhash leads StepStone real estate’s research and fund investment activities. He is also involved in various investment and portfolio management activities. Prior to joining StepStone in 2014, Mr. Subhash was regional portfolio manager for Cohen & Steers Global Realty Partners, a real estate investment manager that focused on private real estate funds and co-investments.  Before that he was co-portfolio manager for Citi Real Estate Partners, where he sourced, underwrote, and managed investments in private real estate funds. He has also served as a vice president for global product development at Citi Alternative Investments and worked in corporate strategy roles for Citigroup. 

Jackie is a Vice President on the Real Assets Investment team where she is responsible for due diligence of primary, secondary and co-investment opportunities in real estate. Prior to joining Hamilton Lane in 2022, Jackie was an Assistant Director with Gibraltar Real Estate Capital, a subsidiary of Toll Brothers, where she was focused on underwriting real estate transactions. Jackie received a B.S. in History from Washington University in St. Louis. 

Mr. Heacox joined The Townsend Group in 2014 and is a Partner within Townsend’s portfolio management team with a primary focus on the firm’s direct real estate strategies . Mr. Heacox has helped lead investment strategy implementation and portfolio management for several open‐end and closed‐end real estate programs totaling approximately $3 billion of investor capital. Mr. Heacox’s primary responsibilities include investment sourcing and underwriting, as well as initiating portfolio recommendations to Townsend’s Investment Committee. He also helps oversee acquisition, disposition, financing, and major capital activities within the firm’s largest directly-managed property portfolio. Mr. Heacox helps lead currency hedging strategy across several of the firm’s global real estate programs and is actively involved in sourcing and underwriting real estate secondary interests and fund recapitalization opportunities. In addition to his investment-related responsibilities, Mr. Heacox also helps lead investor relations and distribution activity for Townsend’s fund management business.  

John Gluszak joined the Office of New York City Comptroller’s Bureau of Asset Management as a Senior Investment Officer in the Real Estate Group in September 2015. In this role, he assisted in making real estate investment recommendations and advising on the real estate portfolio. In 2021, he was appointed Acting Head of Real Estate to oversee the real estate portfolio for the five New York City retirement systems. Prior to BAM, Mr. Gluszak served as a Director at RBC Capital Markets where he was responsible for pricing, hedging, structuring, and securitizing all of the U.S. Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities loans and products. Prior to joining RBC Capital Markets, he served as a Director for Merrill Lynch, where he served multiple roles, and was most recently responsible for North American third party issuance CMBS deals. Mr. Gluszak received both his B.S in Accounting and MBA in Finance from St. John’s University with over 30 years’ experience in the commercial real estate industry. Additionally, he has served as an expert witness for lending institutions and has been published in a textbook on strategic planning.

Jonathan has 25 years of industry experience as a securities analyst covering sectors including REITs, homebuilders, healthcare, technology, industrial, consumer staples, and energy. His experience extends beyond traditional equity analysis to include analysis of fixed income, convertibles, options & derivatives. In addition, experienced in capital structure arbitrage and short selling. Jonathan holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Rochester and an M.B.A. in Finance and Corporate Accounting from the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business at the University of Rochester.

Megan Malone joined the Private Bank in 2015 and is a Director and Head of Private Equity and Real Estate for the Americas. She is responsible for sourcing, conducting investment due diligence, structuring and distributing private equity and real estate investments. Prior to joining Citi, Megan was most recently a Vice President with Kingdom Hotel Investments working in both New York and Dubai. She concentrated on transactional assignments, strategic planning and asset management of the firm’s hotel investments which include Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, the Plaza Hotel in New York and the Savoy Hotel in London. Prior to joining Kingdom, Megan worked for Deutsche Bank Securities in its investment banking division. In that capacity, she worked on a variety of M&A and capital raising transactions across the real estate, gaming, lodging, leisure, consumer and retail industries. She also worked for Host Hotels & Resorts, a leading real estate investment trust, in its asset management division and has held operational roles in a number of hotels. Megan received a BS in Hotel Administration from Cornell University. 

Michael Pascucci is responsible for the portfolio management and construction of Johnson & Johnson’s Private Real Assets (Real Estate) portfolio across the Company’s US and OUS pension plans. He joined the Benefit Trust Investments team in 2018 as part of the build-out of the Private Markets program, in addition to supporting his colleagues’ efforts in Private Equity and Private Credit. Prior to J&J, he was with MetLife Investments as an investment professional in the Alternative Investments Unit, responsible for sourcing, diligence, recommendation and monitoring of private market investments, including fund commitments to buyout, growth equity, venture capital, distressed, and real asset strategies. He started his career at the New Jersey Division of Investment, an $80B+ U.S. State pension fund, where he oversaw a $3B+ portfolio of Private Credit and Debt-related Private Equity investments, in addition to sitting on the Internal Investment Committee which had oversight across the total Alternative Investments portfolio (~$23bn NAV across Private Equity, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Real Assets and Opportunistic Credit). He holds both undergraduate and MBA degrees in Finance from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA.

Sarah Jancot is Senior Investment Manager of Global Logistics Real Estate at NBIM, Norway’s oil fund. NBIM’s unlisted logistics portfolio consists of approximately 135 million square feet across 12 countries. As of Q3 2023, NBIM’s equity investment in private logistics real estate was valued at approximately $11 billion. Prior to joining the team in 2016, Sarah served in transactions roles in Europe, at NBIM and at BNP Paribas, with a primary focus on the office sector. Sarah holds a Master of science in Management from ESSEC Business School, France. Sarah serves on the RICS Americas World Regional Board.

Torii Hunter, Major League Baseball legend, joins the Real Estate Global Forum to share how insights gained after striking out led him to becoming one of the best players in Twins history. Ranked number 95 on the MLB all-time home run list (boasting an impressive 353-home run career), Torii approached each at bat with fresh eyes. Torii embodies the same level of resilience in his real estate career. As Torii explores commercial real estate opportunities, he prioritizes building out a strong team to ensure the success of each project. Five-time All-Star, nine-time Gold Glove award winner, two-time Silver Slugger, and Minnesota Twins Hall of Famer, Torii Hunter dives into how lessons learned on the field have transcended the game of baseball. 

William (Bill) Connors currently serves as the Deputy CIO & Deputy Executive Director for the State of New Jersey, Division of Investment (DOI), leading the Alternatives group, the Fixed Income team, in-house Trading and the Cash Management team. Bill has been with the DOI since 2020, when he was brought in as the Head of Fixed Income. Throughout his three-decade career, Bill has demonstrated expertise in asset allocation, investment policy, risk management, portfolio construction and manager evaluation in alternative and traditional investments. In addition to his private sector experience, Bill gained valuable experience serving as a Board member on five public company Boards of Directors.

He holds a BA in mathematics from Drew University and a Masters of Business Administration in Finance from Columbia University – Columbia Business School.