Kilroy Realty Corporation

American Campus Communities, Inc. (NYSE:ACC) announced that Cydney Donnell will be appointed as the new chair of the board, replacing Edward Lowenthal who will retire at the 2021 annual meeting. Donnell has served on the board since 2004. She has been the director of real estate programs and an executive professor at the Mays Business School of Texas A&M University since 2006 and has served as associate department head of the Finance Department since 2011.

Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE: FRT) promoted Jeffrey Berkes to president and COO. In this newly created role, Berkes will have direct responsibility for Federal’s day-to-day property operating functions on both the East and West Coasts. He joined the company in 2000 as chief investment officer, and in 2011, became president, western region.

JBG SMITH (NYSE: JBGS) named Phyllis Caldwell to its board of trustees. Caldwell is an independent advisor, and the sole member of Wroxton Civic Ventures LLC, which provides advisory services on various financial, housing, and economic development matters.

Kilroy Realty Corp. (NYSE: KRC) announced that Tyler Rose, who most recently served as CFO, has been promoted to president. Michelle Ngo, who previously served as the company’s SVP and treasurer, has been promoted to SVP, CFO, and treasurer. Eliott Trencher, the company’s SVP of corporate strategy, has been promoted to SVP and chief investment officer.

Thomas Baltimore, Jr. has been named to the board of American Express Co. Baltimore is chairman, CEO, and president of Park Hotels & Resorts Inc. (NYSE: PK).

Phillips Edison & Company, Inc. promoted Katelyn Wloszek to the position of director of customer experience. Since joining PECO in 2015, Wloszek has served in various property management positions.

Realty Income Corp. (NYSE: O) named Michelle Bushore as EVP, chief legal officer, general counsel, and secretary. Bushore most recently served as EVP, general counsel, chief legal & risk officer of Caesars Entertainment, Inc.

Seritage Growth Properties (NYSE: SRG) announced that Andrea Olshan has been appointed CEO and president and will join the board of trustees. Previously, Olshan was the CEO of Olshan Properties, a private real estate company that specializes in developing and managing a portfolio of retail and mixed-use properties throughout the U.S.

Ventas, Inc. (NYSE: VTR) announced that Maurice Smith, president and CEO of Health Care Service Corporation, has been appointed as an independent member of its board. Smith began his career at HCSC in 1993 and has served in a wide variety of roles.

W. P. Carey Inc. (NYSE: WPC) promoted Christopher Mertlitz to managing director, head of European investments. He joined the company in 2011.

Weyerhaeuser Co. (NYSE: WY) announced the appointment of Nancy Loewe as SVP and CFO. Loewe joins Weyerhaeuser from Visa, where she served as SVP of finance, and brings more than 20 years of financial and operating experience across multiple industries.

In Memorium

Maynard Cleveland Bartram, Jr., who served as Nareit President from 1972-73, died in January. Bartram graduated from Yale University in 1950 and joined Connecticut General (now CIGNA) in national real estate investment. He was President, Connecticut General Mortgage and Realty Investments, and President, CONGEN Realty Advisory Company. After selling the REIT to Prudential, he was principal at Bartram & Company real estate investment advisors, later Bartram & Cochran.

Leland Speed, founder and chairman of EastGroup Properties, Inc. (NYSE: EGP) and

Parkway Properties, Inc. (NYSE: PKY), died in January at the age of 88. Speed was awarded Nareit’s Industry Leadership Award in 2008 in recognition of his “significant and lasting contribution to the growth and betterment of the industry.”

Speed was a REIT pioneer, beginning his career in 1978 when the industry was composed primarily of mREITs. He built an enterprise through the acquisitions of a series of mREITs through the 1980s and was an early champion of the potential for publicly traded equity REITs in the 1990s. Speed, who was married to his wife Bessie for more than 50 years, is survived by his son Warren.

Dawn Becker, EVP–General Counsel & Secretary, Federal Realty Investment Trust (NYSE: FRT)

"Our internal legal team has always been a critical business partner in the company. That proved invaluable to helping the company deal with the impacts of the pandemic. The biggest change we saw was that our talented group of leasing and transactional attorneys became quasi-business folks working on collections. Collections had historically been handled by our business teams but the sheer volume of collection issues we were facing as a retail-based company because of COVID meant we needed more help, and our legal team stepped up. 

The legal team had a deep understanding of the nuances of the landlord-tenant relationship, which made them really effective. With our legal team helping out, we had a deep pool of talent to help work through our collections challenges smartly. This was definitely the most challenging time I’ve seen in my 24 years at Federal and I couldn’t be prouder of the way the legal team tackled that challenge. I know the company was in a better place in 2020 because of the contributions of the legal team.”

Taylor Kessel, SVP, General Counsel & Secretary, Xenia Hotels & Resorts, Inc. (NYSE: XHR)

"In the early days of the pandemic, the role was focused on operational triage and providing much-needed support to asset management. This involved working with our hotel operators to suspend or alter operations in order to abide by the complex matrix of laws and ordinances that were rolling out daily. As the pandemic continued, the role shifted to a more strategic focus and positioning for an eventual recovery. The pandemic has shown just how interconnected the role of general counsel is, as it sits in a unique position within the organization with visibility into all aspects of the company, both at the ground level and the 30,000-foot level.

Overall, the COVID crisis has changed the role by further embedding the general counsel within the executive team and the decision-making process and magnified the importance of real-time information flow to the board while maintaining the strong governance functions already in place.”

Lauren Stadler, SVP, Corporate Counsel & Asst. Secretary, Kilroy Realty Corporation (NYSE: KRC)

"While the core role has remained much the same over the past year, our legal team has worn many new (and sometimes unexpected) hats as the company acted quickly and nimbly to navigate the continuously evolving pandemic and keep our board updated.

The health and safety of our employees and tenants have remained our top priority throughout the crisis. As part of the company’s multi-disciplinary COVID-19 taskforce, the legal team has stayed up-to-date on state and local stay-at-home orders, and developed new policies, procedures, and a COVID-19 Code of Conduct to keep our employees and tenants safe.

We have also become more involved in human capital management matters such as developing ideas for maintaining employee connections and our strong company culture and personally, as a mother of two young children, helping the company find ways to support our employees as they juggle life responsibilities while working at home.”