Executive of the Year

Honored by CPE

By Yardi Blog Staff on Dec 3, 2013 in News

Jonathan Gray’s continued fast pace of acquisitions won him top honors in this year’s CPE Executive of the Year Awards. The Blackstone Group global head of real estate was selected as Executive of the Year for the third consecutive year. He was also named the 2013 Investor of the Year.

Now in its 17^th year, Commercial Property Executive’s annual executive awards program recognizes industry leaders—those who have demonstrated foresight, ingenuity, character, innovation and strategic thinking during the past year. The program is unique in that winners are determined by a peer vote among the leading commercial real estate executives that comprise the CPE 100 executive board.

“The awards program has long been respected among executives because of the peer vote,” noted CPE editorial director Suzann Silverman. “It reveals who the commercial real estate industry’s top executives regard as setting an example for success and taking the industry to new levels.”

Including 17 categories, the awards feature one Lifetime Achievement honoree but a first place and two honorable mention winners for each of the other categories.

Investment seems to be top of mind today, as the two honorable mention awardees in the Investor of the Year category also were awarded in the Executive of the Year category—resulting in an essential clean sweep of the categories by Gray; Nicholas Schorsch, chairman & CEO of American Realty Capital; and Barry Sternlicht, chairman & CEO of Starwood Capital Group.

Hines president & CEO Jeffrey Hines also received two first-place awards. Another repeat winner, he was named both the 2013 Developer of the Year and Office Property Executive of the Year. Last year, Hines won honorable mention in the Executive of the Year and Sustainability Executive of the Year categories.

The other honorable mention winner to achieve two awards was Lauralee Martin: In a vote that took place shortly before her move from CEO of the Americas for Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. to CEO of HCP, Martin won honors in both the Service Executive of the Year and Female Leader of the Year categories. Meanwhile, two executives advanced this year to lead their categories: Both Robert Merck and T. Wilson Eglin won honorable mentions last year and first place this year, Merck as Financier of the Year and Eglin as Net Lease Executive of the Year.

Recognized this year for Lifetime Achievement was Stephen Ross, chairman of The Related Cos. Noted for his numerous iconic master-planned developments, Ross now has underway yet another groundbreaking project: the redevelopment of the railyards on Manhattan’s West Side into the huge Hudson Yards mixed-use complex. Meanwhile, Toby Bozzuto, president of The Bozzuto Group, took home honors as this year’s Rising Leader.

“The 2013 winners not only achieved noteworthy accomplishments in the past year, they have built their careers on remarkable endeavors,” Silverman observed.

Now in its 27^th year, Commercial Property Executive is uniquely focused on serving the needs of senior-level executives at the companies that own, invest in, develop, finance, lease and manage commercial real estate. We provide access to industry leaders and visionaries, and information that serves as a catalyst for business process improvement, problem solving and achieving measurable results.

The complete list of winners and details of their accomplishments can be found in CPE’s December 2013 issue.