Welcome Sam Biederman, Kate Mann, Alejandro Ernst, Kate, and Shih Hua Liong! 

Our Board of Directors includes leaders from the design, planning, architecture, real estate, legal, transportation, visual arts, and communications fields. We are excited to announce a class of four new members to our diverse leadership team:

Alejandro Ernst, Pantzer Properties, Inc Managing Partner

Alejandro Ernst is a Brooklyn-based professional passionate about combining real estate expertise with community-focused initiatives. Alejandro has more than seven years of institutional real estate management and investing experience. Currently, he is a Managing Director at Pantzer Properties and leads initiatives ranging from sourcing and securing investments to managing investor relations for institutional funds. Alejandro manages multifamily investments across the East Coast that enhance suburban living in major metro areas. His real estate experience previously includes time at Tishman Speyer and Thor Equities. Alejandro is a Georgetown graduate with a degree in Finance and a minor in Art History.

Kate Mann, AIA, ZGF Architects Partner

Kate Mann is a Partner at ZGF Architects, a national leader in design and sustainability with offices from Portland, Oregon to New York City. As the leader of ZGF’s New York office and with three decades of experience designing award-winning institutional, educational, and civic projects internationally, her design approach focuses on finding creative solutions through collaboration. She is currently working on academic campuses across the country on projects such as the Richard King Mellon Hall of Science at Carnegie Mellon University, which brings together art and science to spur innovation. She is a regular speaker at conferences and has presented on topics such the architecture of US embassies and the future of mass timber. Kate received her Bachelor of Science in Architecture from The Georgia Institute of Technology and her Master of Architecture from Princeton University.

Sam Biederman, BerlinRosen Senior Vice President

Sam Biederman brings more than 20 years of public affairs experience. For clients including Dartmouth College, Princeton University, Cornell Tech, Pratt Institute, Bard College and the Kinsey Institute, Sam guides institutional strategy, thought leadership, crisis and change management, research communications, internal and student communications and enrollment marketing. Previously, Sam served as Chief of Staff and Assistant Commissioner for NYC Parks, leading public affairs as the agency navigated the COVID-19 crisis; and Director of Communications for The New School, where he spearheaded community outreach for the university’s first major capital project in more than 50 years. He is a graduate of Vassar College.

Shih Hua Liong, Google Real Estate & Workplace Services Lead

Shih Hua Liong believes that Places, Programs & Services are the ingredients that drive Workplace Experience, and enables organizations to thrive through Placemaking, Service Design and Community Building. Shih Hua applies a multi-disciplinary systems thinking approach to her work that combines design, strategy & operations with service experience at the forefront, and people at the core. Shih Hua has worked across continents with Fortune 500 Companies globally, from London, New York to Tokyo and Singapore - her experience working in tech, and at the forefront of innovation with top performing companies globally, combined with a strong consulting background - gives her a unique ability to apply creative solutions to business processes. Prior to Google, Shih Hua held positions as Director of Strategy with global architecture, design, and planning firms, where she led strategy, campus master-planning, building repositioning across the globe.

Meet the full board here!