Ep. 17: Navigating Multiple Black Swan Events at Once and the Importance of Leadership - Sonny Kalsi - Co-CEO of BentallGreenOak
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BentallGreenOak is a leading, global real estate investment management advisor and a globally-recognized provider of real estate services with approximately $83 billion of assets under management. BGO serves the interests of more than 750 institutional clients with expertise in the asset management of office, retail, industrial and multi-residential property across the globe. BentallGreenOak has offices in 28 cities across fourteen countries with deep, local knowledge, experience, and extensive networks in the regions where we invest and manage real estate assets on behalf of our clients. BentallGreenOak is a part of SLC Management, which is the institutional alternatives and traditional asset management business of Sun Life.

Sonny Kalsi was a co-founder of GreenOak Real Estate in 2010 and, together with the GreenOak Real Estate team, grew the business organically to $12 billion of assets under management in 10 countries with over 100 employees, prior to its 2019 merger with Bentall Kennedy. Before co-founding GreenOak Real Estate, Sonny was the Global Co-Head of Morgan Stanley’s Real Estate Investing (MSREI) business and President of the Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds until 2009. At its peak, the MSREI platform had approximately $100 billion of assets under management in 33 countries. Sonny has oversight responsibility for BentallGreenOak’s U.S., European and U.K. businesses and is a senior member of the Firm’s global Investment Committees.

Sonny is a graduate of Georgetown University and continues to be very involved with the school in advancing academic initiatives. He has been cited by Private Equity Real Estate magazine as one of the “30 Most Influential” people in private equity real estate globally. Sonny is on the board of several organizations including Georgetown University, Teaching Matters, Room to Read, Asia Society and the Hirshhorn Museum.

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Timestamps

(00:01:28) Sonny’s career and background

(00:03:58) What was your experience working at Morgan Stanley?

(00:06:58) What did you learn from experiencing the previous RE downturns?

(00:09:03) How did your career take you to BGO?

(00:19:53) How do you think about the unified vision of BGO?

(00:24:41) What are investors looking for in this market environment?

(00:28:35) What are things that BGO can do to maintain and nurture investor relationships?

(00:29:54) How would you describe what’s happening on the ground right now?

(00:34:57) What’s working really well in your portfolio?

(00:37:53) What are you seeing in Office?

(00:44:11) How are things progressing with your environmental goals?

(00:47:16) How are you going about achieving gender parity at BGO?

(00:51:42) What advice would you get to other CEOs and Founders on getting started with ESG initiatives?