Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Laura Craft is a Senior Vice President, Heitman’s Global Head of Portfolio Sustainability Strategies, and an equity owner of the firm. She leads the firm’s sustainability platform and interacts across business lines and regions to establish systematic approaches to incorporate sustainability into investment decision-making and management of investments with the goal of creating value, reducing risk, and enhancing investment returns. Currently, Craft is the co-chair of the Pension Real Estate Association (PREA) Innovation Affinity Group and is a member of Urban Land Institute (ULI) Greenprint’s Performance Committee. Prior to joining Heitman, she spent 10 years at LaSalle Investment Management, where she began in LaSalle’s valuation and asset management groups and transitioned to develop the firm’s Global Sustainability Platform. Craft's early career experience includes market data coverage at Grubb & Ellis | Barkley Fraser, a real estate brokerage company, as well as Building Information Modeling (BIM) research and development at SmartBIM. Laura’s past industry involvement has included advising ULI Greenprint Center, the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI), and the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) on their reporting frameworks and environmental data platforms.

Craft received a double BA in Real Estate and Business Management from the University of Georgia, where she was one of 30 UGA students to earn a Leonard Leadership Scholar Certification. She is also a graduate of the Urban Land Institute’s Center for Leadership program and is a LEED Accredited Professional, having overseen over 100 LEED, IREM, Energy Star, and Green Globes designations.

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Ryan Patel is a globally recognized futurist and go-to authority on global business, political economy, and corporate governance. Currently the William F. Podlich Distinguished Fellow at CMC, Patel is an expert in scaling businesses, he's served startups and publicly traded firms. Listed as one of the “Creators to Follow” by LinkedIn Editor in Chief Daniel Roth and recognized as a “Top Voice” on Linkedin, Patel is a sought-after TV news commentator and Board Director. Patel also hosts "The Moment with Ryan Patel," featuring conversations with top innovators and executives filmed at the iconic HP Garage, the birthplace of Silicon Valley. He complements his literary talents with domestic and international keynote appearances, leading campaigns with corporations and universities such as the World Economic Forum, Davos, Mastercard, HP, Adobe, The Economist, Reuters, and more.

This Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Financial Economics Institute at CMC.