VCU Business

Nikki Greenberg is the world’s top real estate futurist and one of the most sought-after industry trends keynote speakers. Through her high-energy keynotes, she explores the convergence of real space and cyberspace. She is determined not only to inspire her audiences with the possibilities of emerging technologies and innovative thinking but also to provide insights on how to capitalize on them. In short, Nikki directs companies on what to do today to meet the needs of tomorrow.

A true digital nomad with an international career spanning the U.S., Asia and Australia, she has held cross-functional leadership positions focused on innovation and design. Most recently, she served as head of technology strategy for QIC, an Australian investment manager, where she led the transformation of its $17 billion AUM real estate portfolio and $4 billion development pipeline toward a tech-enabled future. In New York, she led the innovation efforts of the No. 1 private brokerage Brown Harris Stevens for new luxury residential developments. In Australia, she designed and developed transformative mixed-use residential, retail and master plan projects with Lendlease and Koichi Takada Architects.

Nikki has received numerous industry awards and accolades, including 2025 Speaker of the Year in the Future Trends and Technologies category; Top 9 Most Influential Women in PropTech (2024); Top Real Estate Influencer (2023); Top 5 Most Influential Women in Real Estate (2022); ULI Global Luminary (2022); Top 25 CRE Innovator (2021); and finalist at the MIPIM Global PropTech Awards (2019). She is a frequent keynote speaker at leading real estate industry conferences around the world, where she shares her vision of a tech-enabled future.

She proudly serves as a three-term co-chair of ULI New York’s Real Estate Technology and Innovation Council and as global ambassador for Women in PropTech, which she also founded. Nikki leads the industry’s conversation on built world innovation.

She is an alumna of UNSW in Sydney, Australia, where she earned a Master of International Business, Master of Architecture and Bachelor of Architecture with honors.

An Australian national, Nikki now resides in New York. It’s little wonder she is one of the most sought-after speakers of this age.

Elliot Eisenberg, Ph.D., is an internationally acclaimed economist and public speaker specializing in making the arcana and minutia of economics engaging, relevant and educational. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics with first-class honors from McGill University in Montreal, as well as a master’s and Ph.D. in public administration from Syracuse University.

Eisenberg, a former senior economist with the National Association of Home Builders in Washington, D.C., is the creator of the Multifamily Stock Index, the first nationally recognized index tracking the total return of public firms principally involved in apartment ownership and management. He is the author of more than 85 articles and a consultant to several large real estate professional associations, hedge funds and investment advisory groups.

He has spoken to thousands of business groups and associations, often as a keynote speaker. Dr. Eisenberg has been invited to testify before lawmakers and frequently comments on proposed legislation. His research and opinions have been featured in Bloomberg, Businessweek, Bureau of National Affairs, Forbes, Fortune and other publications. He is also a regular guest on cable news programs, talk shows and public radio.

Renee Haltom is the Richmond regional executive and vice president of research communications at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Her work involves engaging business, banking and community leaders on national, regional and local economic conditions to inform the monetary policymaking process, as well as sharing information about the Federal Reserve System. Haltom is based at the Richmond office and is responsible for public outreach and engagement in Virginia. She also oversees the Richmond Fed's regional executive, research communications and economic education functions, as well as its Community Depository Institutions Advisory Council.

Haltom joined the Richmond Fed in 2009 as an economic writer in the research department, often focusing on monetary policy, economic theory and the Federal Reserve. She served as editor of Econ Focus magazine from 2015 to 2018. She began her Fed career in 2005 at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, providing education on monetary policy and the Federal Reserve to a variety of audiences.

Haltom holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Michigan State University and a master's degree in economics from the University of San Francisco.

Jay Bilas is one of the most respected and influential voices in sports, with a remarkable background that spans sports, media, and the law. He is an Emmy-nominated ESPN analyst and a New York Times best-selling author of Toughness: Developing True Strength on and Off the Court. The book reveals the secrets of mental and physical toughness through personal stories and interviews with inspiring leaders.

Jay played basketball at Duke University under legendary coach Mike Krzyzewski, helping the team reach the 1986 NCAA Championship Game. Jay was drafted by the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and went on to play professionally abroad in Italy and Spain. He then returned to Duke as an assistant coach, winning two national championships. Jay joined ESPN as a college basketball analyst & expert commentator and hosts ESPN’s popular road show, College Game Day.

Jay graduated from Duke University School of Law and is a practicing attorney at Moore & Van Allen. He serves on the Board of Advisors of the John R. Wooden Award, the National Board of Coaches, and the Duke University Children’s Hospital. Jay resides in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Willy Walker is chairman and chief executive officer of Walker & Dunlop. Under Mr. Walker’s leadership, Walker & Dunlop has grown from a small, family-owned business to become one of the largest commercial real estate finance companies in the United States. Walker & Dunlop is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and, in its first ten years as a public company, has seen its shares appreciate over 800%. The firm was also #17 on Fortune’s 2017 list of “Fastest Growing Public Companies” and has been named a Best Workplace for eight of the last eleven years by the Great Place to Work® Institute. Mr. Walker received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2011 and was named “Financier of the Year” in 2017 and 2020 by Commercial Property Executive.

Mr. Walker received his master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree from St. Lawrence University. Mr. Walker serves on the board of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Foundation. He formerly served on the boards of St. Albans School, the Mortgage Bankers Association, and Children’s National Medical Center. Mr. Walker is also a member of the Real Estate Roundtable. Mr. Walker is an avid runner, skier, and cyclist and has run the Boston Marathon in 2:36.

Future-of-work strategist Heather E. McGowan helps leaders prepare their people and organizations for the post-pandemic world of work. The last few years have forever changed where we work, who works, how we work and measure work, what we do for work, and, most importantly, why we work.

McGowan is a sense maker, a dot connector, a deep thinker, and a pattern matcher who sees things that others miss. Heather gives people the courage and insight that illuminates their path forward.

She’s transforming mindsets and entire organizations around the globe with her message about how the next phase of work will focus on continuous learning, rather than simply learning once in order to work. Pulitzer Prize–winning NYT columnist Thomas Friedman frequently quotes Heather in his books and columns and describes her as “the oasis” when it comes to insights into the future of work. In 2020 Heather was recognized as one of the top 50 female futurists in the world by Forbes. Heather’s sessions help employees and leaders alike prepare for and adapt to jobs that do not yet exist.

McGowan has provided keynote addresses for audiences from start-ups to government organizations to universities to publicly traded Fortune 100 companies, including AMP Financial, SAP, Abbvie, Biogen, Fidelity, FIS, Mastercard, AT&T, Financial Times, Siemens, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Kaiser Permanente, JPMorgan Chase, Lockheed Martin, MassMutual, MetLife, Best Buy, Raytheon, The US Army, Accor Hotels, Paramount, Chevron, AARP, Zendesk, Tableau, Fidelity, de Beers, Professional Beauty Association, and The World Bank among hundreds of others.

Heather addresses audiences in person from small summits for C-suite executives to large events in the tens of thousands. Her virtual talks have reached hundreds of thousands. Often quoted in the media, notably in the New York Times, McGowan serves on the advisory board for Sparks & Honey, a New York–based culture-focused agency looking to the future for brands. McGowan’s academic work has included roles at Rhode Island School of Design, and Jefferson University, where she was the strategic architect of the first undergraduate college focused exclusively on innovation. In 2019 Heather was appointed as a faculty member of the Swinburne University Centre For the New Workforce in Melbourne, Australia.

In 2022, McGowan was awarded an honorary doctorate from Pennsylvania College of Art and Design in addition to earning her MBA from Babson College and her BFA in Industrial Design from Rhode Island School of Design. McGowan is the coeditor and author of the book Disrupt Together: How Teams Consistently Innovate and a Forbes contributor. McGowan’s first book on the future of work, published in 2020: The Adaptation Advantage: Let Go, Learn Fast, and Thrive in the Future of Work, reached number three in business management books on Amazon and was named one of the best business books of 2021 by Soundview.

McGowan’s most recent book The Empathy Advantage: Leading the Empowered Workforce published in March 2023 and is a finalist for the Next Big Idea Book Club and identified as a top ten business book to read in 2023 by Business Chief.

Bitner is responsible for the strategic vision and execution of research initiatives, focusing on thought leadership that leverages the firm’s deep, data-driven market intelligence with an emphasis on the capital markets space.

 A 10-year industry veteran, with more than 12 years of experience in the finance industry, Bitner’s client-centric research approach comprises analysis of international macroeconomic trends, real estate fundamentals and capital markets dynamics to identify potential risks and opportunities for investors.

Bitner joined Newmark in 2022 after serving as Vice President and Global Head of Capital Markets Research at Cushman & Wakefield, where he led research and strategic planning for Capital Markets. Prior, Bitner was an investment professional, specializing in global cross-asset strategy at Makena Capital, a leading endowment-style investment manager located in Palo Alto, CA.

Education
Bitner holds a Master of Business Administration from Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkley and a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Civilizations and Economics at Duke University.

Peter Zeihan is a geopolitical strategist, which is a fancy way of saying he helps people understand how the world works. Peter combines an expert understanding of demography, economics, energy, politics, technology, and security to help clients best prepare for an uncertain future.

Over the course of his career, Peter has worked for the US State Department in Australia, the DC think tank community, and helped develop the analytical models for Stratfor, one of the world’s premier private intelligence companies. Peter founded his own firm — Zeihan on Geopolitics — in 2012 in order to provide a select group of clients with direct, custom analytical products. Today those clients represent a vast array of sectors including energy majors, financial institutions, business associations, agricultural interests, universities and the U.S. military.

With a keen eye toward what will drive tomorrow’s headlines, his irreverent approach transforms topics that are normally dense and heavy into accessible, relevant takeaways for audiences of all types.

Peter is a critically-acclaimed author whose first two books — The Accidental Superpower and The Absent Superpower — have been recommended by Mitt Romney, Fareed Zakaria and Ian Bremmer. His latest third title Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World became available in March 2020.

Peter’s fourth book, The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization, became available in June 2022.

Suzanne Mulvee serves as Chief Strategy Officer at GID, a vertically-integrated investor, operator, developer and Fiduciary with more than $26B in assets under management, including more than 46,000 apartment units and 25 million SF of industrial space across the U.S. Mulvee is responsible for creating actionable insights into economic drivers, capital market trends, and real estate fundamentals to maximize risk-adjusted returns across real estate cycles. Additionally, Mulvee leads the firm’s business intelligence team which is tasked with mobilizing data into actionable insights for business leaders.

Prior to joining GID, Mulvee was a Director and Real Estate Strategist at CoStar Portfolio Strategy and PPR. There, she was a consultant to some of the largest investment managers, life insurers, pension funds, banks, and private equity funds in the U.S., providing independent expertise in real estate market, portfolio, and mortgage risk analysis. She regularly speaks to industry organizations, is often quoted in the national press, and has appeared on CNBC. She earned a B.A. cum laude in Financial and Managerial Economics from the University of New Hampshire, and holds the CFA designation.

Greg Lindsay is the incoming director of applied research at NewCities and director of strategy at its mobility offshoot, CoMotion. He is also a non-resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Foresight, Strategy, and Risks Initiative, a visiting scholar at New York University’s  Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management, and co-author of Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next.

His work with Studio Gang Architects on the future of suburbia was displayed at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 2012. His work has also been displayed at the 15th and 16th Venice Architecture Biennales, the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam and Habitat III.

Greg is a partner at FutureMap, a geo-strategic advisory firm based in Singapore, and has advised Intel, Samsung, Starbucks, Audi, Chrysler, Hyundai, Tishman Speyer, British Land, André Balazs Properties, Emaar, Aldar and Expo 2020, among many other organizations. He was the inaugural urbanist-in-residence at URBAN-X — BMW MINI’s urban tech accelerator.

Greg’s presentation from the 2019 VCU Real Estate Trends Conference is available by request for attendees of the event only. Please email retc@vcu.edu to request a copy.

Mary Ludgin is Heitman’s Senior Managing Director, Head of Global Research and an equity owner of the firm. She is a member of the firm’s Board of Managers, Global Management Committee, North American Private Equity Valuation Committee, and Private Equity and Debt Investment Committees. She is the author of numerous articles and research studies relating to real estate markets, portfolio management and strategy. Prior to joining Heitman, she was an urban planner for the City of Chicago and she worked in retail site location.

Mary received an AB from Vassar College and an MA and PhD from Northwestern University. She is a Governing Trustee of the Urban Land Institute and sits on its Global Board of Directors. Mary also chairs ULI’s Chicago District Council. Among other professional affiliations, she served two terms on the board of the Pension Real Estate Association and was its president. Mary is also a former president of the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries. She was named a fellow of the Homer Hoyt Institute in 2000, is a docent for the Chicago Architecture Foundation and is a member of the board of the Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago.

Elliot Eisenberg, Ph.D., is a nationally acclaimed economist and public speaker specializing in making economics fun, relevant and educational. Dr. Eisenberg earned a B.A. in economics with first class honors from McGill University in Montreal, as well as a Master and Ph.D. in public administration from Syracuse University. Eisenberg is the Chief Economist for GraphsandLaughs, LLC, an economic consultancy that serves a variety of clients across the United States. He writes a syndicated column and authors a daily 70-word commentary on the economy that is available at www.econ70.com.

Dr. Eisenberg has spoken to hundreds of business groups and associations, often as keynote speaker on topics including economic forecasts, economic impact of industries such as homebuilding and tourism, consequences of government regulation, strategic business development, and other current economic issues. Dr. Eisenberg has been invited to testify before lawmakers and is often asked to comment on proposed legislation. His research and opinions have been featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, Bureau of National Affairs, Forbes, Fortune and many other publications. He is a regularly featured guest on cable news programs, talk and public radio.

Dr. Eisenberg was formerly a Senior Economist with the National Association of Home Builders in Washington, D.C. He is the creator of the multifamily stock index (the first nationally recognized index to track the total return of public firms principally involved in the ownership and management of apartments), the author of more than ninety-five articles, serves on the Expert Advisory Board of Mortgage Market Guide and is a regular consultant to several large real estate professional associations, hedge funds and investment advisory groups.

Elliot’s interests include keeping the rate of restoration of his 65-year-old house ahead of its rate of deterioration and doting on his daughter. He loves ice hockey and talking economics with crowds large and small!

Steve Weikal is Head of Industry Relations at the MIT Center for Real Estate, responsible for managing relationships between the Center and its global network of industry partners and nearly 1100 alumni of the MIT Master’s in Real Estate Development (MSRED) program, in 43 countries. He is also a lecturer and researcher, focused on innovative new technology and business models that disrupt the traditional ways of developing, transacting and managing real estate.

Steve is the Founder of MIT Real Disruption, a successful series of conferences discussing the impact of emerging technology on the real estate industry, and he sits on the advisory boards of three real estate technology start-ups. Steve has spoken extensively about real estate disruption at conferences for AFIRE, IREM, SIOR, CCIM, CoreNet and BOMA, and has been quoted by numerous media outlets, including BuzzFeed, TechInsider, the Boston Globe, GlobeSt., the Real Reporter and Anuario Inmobiliario LatinoAmerica.

Steve holds a Master’s of Science in Real Estate Development (MSRED) and Master’s in City Planning (MCP) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a law degree from Suffolk University Law School. He is a licensed attorney, a licensed real estate broker, and a LEED Accredited Professional.

Prior to his position at the MIT Center for Real Estate, Steve was Vice President of NOW Communities, a Concord, MA-based developer of new residential neighborhoods that merge the best of traditional design with 21st-century energy technology. Before graduate school, Steve was National Media Tour Producer for Martin Scorses’s The Blues, for WGBH Boston, was Manager of Partner Acquisition at Curl, a VC funded tech start-up launched to commercialize a new coding language developed at the MIT Lab for Computer Science (LCS), and was a Founding Partner of Sonoma Coast Vineyards, maker of award-winning Pinot Noir from the Extreme Sonoma Coast of California. He began his real estate career restoring and redeveloping historic theaters in Detroit’s Fox Center entertainment district.