ULI San Francisco’s Boardroom After Dark dinner series continues into its third season!  We invite you to get up-close-and-personal with some of the most dynamic and engaging real estate and land use leaders who are making things happen in the San Francisco Bay Area. Join these leaders for an intimate dinner with only eleven other ULI members!

Dinners are held between 5:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. in a private dining room at Il Fornaio, 1265 Battery Street.  This season’s dinners are scheduled for:

July 11                         Nina Gruen – Executive Vice President, Gruen Gruen + Associates
August 8                      Gloria Gil –‎Managing Director – Real Estate at University of California Regents
September 12             Carol Galante – Faculty Director, Terner Center for Housing Innovation, UC Berkeley
October 10                   Kiran Jain – Chief Resiliency Office, City of Oakland
November 16              Gayle Starr – Managing Director, Global Markets, Prologis
December 12              Janice Thacher – Partner, Wilson Meany

Applications for this year’s Boardroom After Dark are now closed. To be added to the waitlist, please email [email protected] and list your top three preferences. 

Interested in attending?  We’re looking for ULI members with:

• A desire to learn from real estate business leaders and fellow ULI members in a small-group setting that fascinates discussion;
• A keen interest in sharing ideas, best practices, and inspiration;
• and, a hunger to share food, drink, and a side of candid conversation with like minded professionals.

Selection Process:
We request that interested ULI members complete a brief application, to (a) let us know which Boardroom dinner you would like to attend, and (b) briefly explain your goals and objectives in participating.  A maximum of 11 ULI members may attend each Boardroom event and we will do our best to match you with one of your top choices.

We strive to assure that all applicants who wish to attend a Boardroom After Dark event have the opportunity to participate.  If we are unable to accommodate all applicants, we will attempt to provide you with top consideration for our next installment.

Payment:
Payment is due at the time a member is selected to register for an event. Failure to attend your assigned dinner will affect future dinner event opportunities. Dinner & drinks will be pre-arranged.

ULI Members only: $95 (all-inclusive food & wine).

Attendance Policy:
Attendance at the Boardroom After Dark dinner events is extremely limited and attendees are selected with an eye toward facilitating a dynamic conversation. Due to the limited capacity of this program, refunds are not available.

Applications for this year’s Boardroom After Dark are now closed. To be added to the waitlist, please email [email protected] and list your top three preferences. 

Questions?  Please contact:

Corie A. Edwards                             Jordan McCarthy
WLI Committee Co-Chair              WLI Committee Co-Chair
Rueben, Junuis & Rose, LLP         Woodruff Sawyer & Co.
(415) 398-0200                                (415) 399-6452
[email protected]            [email protected]

Nina Gruen

Nina J. Gruen is Executive Vice President and Principal Sociologist of Gruen Gruen + Associates, a research-based urban economic real estate and development services consulting firm, headquartered in San Francisco, Ms. Gruen specializes in real estate analysis and has pioneered the use of behavioral research in conjunction with demographic data in order to forecast market reactions to real estate projects.  She has conducted innovative studies for cities and other public agencies, and for shopping center investors, owners, and managers. She currently serves the Federal Court as co-Special Master with her husband, Claude, for the remediation and development of an 84-acre brownfield site in Union City.

Ms. Gruen has lectured and published extensively. Since January 2014, she has been the industry’s Dear Ms. Real Estate for ALM Real Estate Media Group, publishing one column a month on GlobeSt.com. Her memoir, “Believe It or Not: The Challenges Facing One Professional Woman a Half Century Ago,” was published in December, 2015.

Ms. Gruen was Chair of the State of California Transportation Commission Airspace Advisory Committee from January, 2002 through May, 2005. This committee oversaw all negotiated bids for excess State of California Department of Transportation lands.  In 1984, she became the first woman president of the Western Regional Science Association. Ms. Gruen was the first woman elected to the Urban Land Institute Board of Trustees, where she served from 1982-1997. In 1997, she became the first woman to be appointed an honorary member of the Institute.

Gloria Gil

As Managing Director of Real Estate, Gloria Gil is responsible for conducting due diligence, selecting, hiring, and providing ongoing review and oversight of external investment managers.  She also provides detailed evaluations and selection criteria of specific external investment strategies and works at the Regents of the University of California (“UC Regents”) to implement and monitor the program that she built since 2006, currently valued at over $4.0 billion of equity.

Before joining UC Regents’ Office of the Chief Investment Officer in 2006, Ms. Gil worked as a Senior Investment Officer for the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association (“LACERA”); a Portfolio Manager with Insignia Commercial Group; and served as Vice President of TCW Realty Advisors.

Ms. Gil received her Bachelor of Science degree in Commerce and Accounting at De Paul University and MBA degree at St. Mary’s College of California.

She serves as an Advisory Board member of the Institute of Real Estate Management, Plan Sponsor Council member of the Pension Real Estate Association and guest lecturer at UC Irvine School of Business.

Carol Galante

Carol Galante is the I. Donald Terner Distinguished Professor in Affordable Housing and Urban Policy and the Faculty Director of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation, both at UC Berkeley. The Terner Center for Housing Innovation has a mission to formulate bold strategies to house families from all walks of life in vibrant, sustainable, and affordable homes and communities. As Faculty Director, Galante leads in the advancement of innovative and practical housing solutions in the private and public sector. In addition, she co­chairs the Policy Advisory Board of the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics.

Prior to coming to UC Berkeley, Galante served in the Obama Administration for over five years as the Assistant Secretary for Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing programs.

As FHA commissioner during the recent financial crisis, Galante provided key leadership in the housing sector, including strengthening FHA’s infrastructure and policies while providing access to credit that helped stabilize the housing market. She also developed signature initiatives that provided better opportunities to low income families including Choice Neighborhoods and the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program.

Prior to her appointment at HUD, Galante was President and Chief Executive of BRIDGE Housing Corporation, the largest nonprofit developer of affordable, mixed­income and mixed­use developments in California. Galante has also worked for local government in city planning and community economic development. She holds a Master of City Planning from UC Berkeley.

Kiran Jain

Kiran Jain is the Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Oakland and the founder of Civic Design Lab, an innovation space within City Hall.  She has experience in both the public and private sectors working on urban innovation and community development.  Ms. Jain served as Chief Strategy Officer for Neighborly, a venture-backed company modernizing public finance to build the infrastructure people rely on to work, live, and play.  Prior to Neighborly, Kiran served as a senior deputy city attorney for the City of Oakland focused on land use, urban redevelopment and municipal governance.  In private practice, Kiran focused on land use, environmental, finance and real estate law. She currently serves on the Executive Board of the Resilient by Design: Bay Area Challenge, which is harnessing the region’s innovative spirit to combat the threat of climate change and sea level rise.

From 2010 through 2013, Kiran served on the board of Asian Law Caucus, the nation’s first legal and civil rights organization serving low-income Asian Pacific American communities.  Kiran also served as the founding attorney for Kiva, a nonprofit microfinance platform with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. She also pioneered the partnership between Kiva Zip and the City of Oakland to crowdfund local economic development.  Prior to law school, Kiran worked at the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn, Germany.

Kiran has an A.B. in economics and minor in environmental science from Barnard College, a Master’s Degree in international affairs from Columbia University, and a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University.

Gayle Starr

Gayle Starr is Managing Director, Capital Markets at Prologis. She is responsible for the corporate lines of credit as well as overseeing all non-public debt internationally and domestically for Prologis and its coinvestment funds. Ms. Starr has successfully designed and originated complex finance structures across eight funds globally and has orchestrated the corporate- and property-level financing for currencies in 14 countries, totaling approximately $4 to $6 billion in capital markets transactions on an annual basis, as well as being responsible for over 40 lender relationships.

Prior to joining Prologis, Ms. Starr was vice president of financial asset management for a national development company responsible for major lease negotiations, partnership structuring, finance and dispositions. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at San Diego and a J.D. from the University of California at Davis.

Janice Thacher

Janice Thacher is a Partner at Wilson Meany, a San Francisco-based developer of mixed-use, residential, retail, office and master planned urban infill properties. She is a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles, and holds a Master of Management from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.  She has been involved in several high-profile Wilson Meany projects, including Bay Meadows, Treasure Island, Hollywood Park, 140 New Montgomery, and the Exploratorium.

In 2013, the San Francisco Business Times recognized Ms. Thacher as one of the Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business.

Before joining Wilson Meany, Janice led the development of Pier 1 — an award-winning historic rehabilitation project on San Francisco’s waterfront — in her role leading AMB Corporate Real Estate Advisors as a part of the development group at AMB Property Corporation (now Prologis). While there, Ms. Thacher represented clients in the acquisition and disposition of assets, portfolio evaluation and lease negotiations. Prior to that, Janice was a partner at Trammell Crow Company in Southern California.