Summer Issue 2021 - 35

Perhaps the greatest challenge
and where real estate has an outsized
influence is climate change.
The real estate industry in particular
can and should play a leading role
in taking on that challenge, and ULI
can be the thought leader, helping
the real estate world address
that challenge and turn it from a
negative to a great opportunity for
all stakeholders in the real estate
industry.
Another major global issue is
housing or lack thereof. Affordable
housing is becoming more and
more a challenge as wealth disparity
grows. Finding a better way
to ensure that more people have
access to affordable housing is a
goal-and an opportunity-for all real
estate stakeholders. Each city has its
own unique challenges, but the need
for a solution is global and needs to
be addressed immediately.
Finally, a third goal which ULI
members have told us is among
their top priorities is education. An
important part of ULI's mandate is to
ensure that we share what we know,
but also to ensure that the organization
is addressing a wide audience,
not solely the preexisting real estate
stakeholders. We need to welcome
a new, diverse group of members.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are
critical to ULI achieving its goals and
its broader mandate.
As new global chairman,
what is your mission?
Is there something that
you particularly want to
achieve?
ULI is a member-driven organization,
so while I do have personal
areas of interest, my mission is to
focus on leading the organization
to achieve its goals. I'm a steward
of the organization, and I want to
reflect what the organization wants,
what its members want. My role is
to help ensure that we achieve the
goals of our members, which is currently
articulated as climate change,
affordable housing, and education
in achieving ULI's mission to shape
the future of the built environment
for transformative impact in communities
worldwide.
What are your thoughts as
we begin to come out of
the pandemic? What are the
lessons learned from this
historic experience?
There are many lessons learned.
Unfortunately, many of the lessons
are painful and continue to have a
devastating impact on individuals
and communities around the world.
While much can obviously be said
about this topic, I will focus my comments
on lessons learned for ULI.
Clearly, one of the bigger surprises
is how businesses and much
of society in general have been
able to operate quite productively
despite limited physical interaction.
The effectiveness of videoconference
technology has been a pleasant
surprise, and in some ways it
has flattened the world by enabling
many more people to participate in
a discussion.
One of the strengths of ULI has
been its in-person conferences. I
always loved the energy of the first
" OUR UNIVERSE IS NO LONGER LIMITED IN ANY
WAY TO WHERE ANYONE LIVES. ANYONE WITH
INTERNET ACCESS NOW HAS ACCESS TO ULI IN
A WAY THEY DIDN'T HAVE BEFORE, WHICH TO
ME IS A VERY EXCITING PROSPECT. I THINK IT'S
GOING TO BRING THE BARRIERS DOWN IN QUITE
A BIG WAY, AND I THINK HYBRID EVENTS WILL
BE HERE TO STAY. "
day at a conference and seeing
many people, most of whom I didn't
know, but just feeling the energy,
seeing them bump into people that
they hadn't seen since the previous
conference. So, when we saw that
the conferences couldn't take place,
I was naturally concerned that we
would not be able to provide a very
important part of the value that ULI
provided its members.
But one of the most pleasant
developments for ULI was seeing
the success of online meetings.
What I loved to see was that our
attendance remained very strong
when we went online for our meetings.
What that validated, to my
great satisfaction, was that ULI
clearly was far more than just networking.
The increased attendance
suggested that ULI's attraction really
was about the content: people did
want to hear what other people had
to say and learn from others and
share and collaborate. It wasn't just
the dinners and the cocktails. It
was much more about what people
SUMMER 2021
URBAN LAND
35
Summer Issue 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Summer Issue 2021
