General Breakfast Reception

The Best Year Ever: A Guided Meditation for Success!

As women, we define success in a multitude of ways: professional power, financial status, personal relationships, a healthy body image — and the list goes on. What defines success for you? How do you measure success?

Beth Finegan Reynolds, Sales Manager for TitleVest Insurance Services and the founder of NRG Power Group, will explore these questions through a unique exercise. Employing guided meditation, participants are invited to mindfully create their best year ever. By engaging self-awareness and accessing information that lies within, participants are encouraged to look inside for their own best answers. This powerful and thought-provoking exercise will be one of both reflection and growth.

Due to the nature of the quiet space that is required, please be on time. There will be no admittance to the room after 8:10am.

Welcome from Event Emcee

Amanda Powers, Event Director, Real Estate Women’s Forum

Morning Keynote

Urban Innovation: Turning Challenges into Opportunities in Development & Construction

Development and construction across New York City shows little signs of slowing down yet the building in this region is one of the most complex in the country due to ever-changing regulations, permit process, and government requirements. In addition, labor is in short supply and costs continue to rise. Yet, there is an abundance of innovation taking place across the development and construction process which makes the impossible possible. What are major developers and heads of construction using as part of their tool box to move projects forward and turn challenges into opportunities?

• At your fingertips: the best technologies to use to stay on time and on budget
• State of the market: Key economic drivers impacting the city
• Up, up and away: lessons from mega projects and midsize projects
• Fostering community: Unique approaches to culminate a neighborhood
• Millennials are changing: How this aging population continues to change the live and work environment

Navigating the New: Leading and Succeeding in the 21st Century

One of the most challenging aspects of leading is dealing with the ambiguity and scariness of the unknown. Never has this been truer than in the 21st Century where the fast, hyper-connected and constantly changing world has made every aspect of business harder than ever before.

Leadership means creating new ideas to make things better for your people, customers and communities. Then you have to convince others to try out those ideas, without anyone knowing whether they will succeed or fail.

Walls of resistance will rise in response to untested new ideas because of the discomfort their uncertainty causes. The greatest resistance can come from leaders themselves. Dodging discomfort may provide short term relief, but it will impair long term growth. Learning to push through discomfort moves organizations into the future and builds careers.

Drawing from Julie’s experiences of navigating the new as Amazon’s first real estate executive and her many years of working with executives, this session will help its participants to:

• See the scariness that comes with trying out new ideas as an asset, not a liability.
• Learn four core principles for navigating the unknown to build success for their organizations.
• Recognize the opportunities that come from embracing the unknown for their own leadership paths, and how not to get it their own way.

Networking & Meetups

Mentorship Program: Investing in Your Future through the Power of Relationships

When you’re stuck in the weeds of the daily grind it can be hard to think about signing yourself up for one more aspect that further eats into your greatest commodity – time. Yet, experts time and time again repeat you’re only as good as your network and you are responsible for your destiny.

REWF is pleased to announce its first Mentorship Program. Mentors and mentees will hear a valuable panel discussion followed by open networking where mentees and mentors will seek matches.

During the panel discussion you’ll hear from female power players on how they foster their network, continue to expand it and what they’ve learned over the years.

Moderated by Michele O’Connor, Principal, Past President, CREW NY

Panelists:
Charlotte Sturgis, Head of Construction, Rose Associates
Allison Robin, Principal, Levien & Company, CREW NY
Kathy Kaye, President, Sotheby’s.

Next Gen Offices: Technology, Design & Spaces that Boost Workforce Effectiveness

Office space has become the latest weapon being used by major corporations in the war for talent. Seeking every advantage possible, major companies are seeking high-quality office space in attractive locations and investing in top-notch, employee-friendly amenities. With competition for highly skilled employees at a fever pitch, tenants are seeking every advantage that may make the different with a highly skilled workforce. What do today’s office tenants want and what does the leasing environment look like?

• In-demand Office Space: What’s leasing, what’s not and why
• Big big or go small: Advantages to the shrinking office footprint trend and how urban versus suburban office space requirements differ
• Magnetic appeal: Amenities and communal spaces that attract the largest tenants
• Roaming: Adaptable spaces for the remote workers
• Flex your muscles: Flex spaces and flex leases that pencil out

One Step Ahead: Innovation & Technology in Property Operations

Residents and tenants are more discerning than ever because they have choices and don’t have to stay unless their robust needs are met. This new reality has owners and operators working vigorously to differentiate. Yet, as consumers become more sophisticated so do expectations and keeping up while controlling costs requires sound decisions with where and what to invest in.

• Master the ratings game: Managing your reputation in a social-media, Google+ savvy building
• Pricing strategies: Methods that work for hotels could work for you
• Delivery: What Amazon package lockers may mean for your building
• Serve it up: Creating improved work-from-home environments
• Paw-friendly: Design trends for pet owners

A Tale of Two Stories: The Foreign & Domestic Investment Landscape

The United States real estate market remains appealing to international investors and the abundance of capital flowing in is driving up prices. The international landscape has changed whereby investors would only comfortable with local or regional investments are now open to investments anywhere around the world. At the same time, markets are toppy and there are new entrants. Where is capital coming from, what’s attractive and where are deals getting done? What product types and markets are domestic investors most interested in?

• Out with the old: The changing face of international investors
• In with the new: Who are the new entrants in the market?
• What’s hot, what’s not: The product types and markets that are most appealing today

Supercity Status: Trends that Will Dictate Design in New Developments & Redevelopments

New York City has always been a city that’s prided itself in being a front runner in innovation and sustainability. Whether it’s battery powered buses, wifi enabled telephone booths or becoming a technology hub. How will the emergence of shared cars, the changing job landscape and the state of brick and mortar retail have on commercial real estate? The challenge for owners, investors and developers is finding the right balance in design, aesthetic and costs that appeals to their customers now and in the future.

• Push and pull: How the online and offline shopping environment will impact the activation of sidewalks and the design of buildings
• Future proofing: creating today with the idea of retrofitting later
• In a New York minute: How to design and construct buildings that are resilient to natural disasters?
• Retrofitting: Evolving existing building to bring them into the next generation
• Next gen jobs and workforce: What the rise in technology and advanced manufacturing jobs means for the region