Dovid Frankel
Global Real Estate Funds Leader
Assurance Partner
Dovid is EY’s Global Real Estate Funds Co-Leader and an assurance partner in EY’s New York Real Estate group. He has more than 31 years of experience serving clients in the real estate and financial services industries. He is skilled in US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and IFRS. Dovid has been responsible for preparing and coordinating EY’s real estate fund thought leadership pieces, including developing thought leadership on real estate technology and presenting on real estate technology and real estate valuations.
Moshe Lichtenstein
Chief Investment Officer, Converge US and Chief Credit Officer, Lightstone
Moshe Lichtenstein is a senior member of the Lightstone investment team and Chief Investment Officer of Converge US. Mr. Lichtenstein is responsible for investment strategy and oversees the sub-managers for Converge. For Lightstone, he oversees a team of investment professionals who evaluate on a daily basis potential investments in all sectors of real estate including residential, commercial, retail and industrial. Mr. Lichtenstein has been a key member of Lightstone’s executive management team and is a member of the investment, credit and compliance committees. Mr. Lichtenstein sits on the Board of Trustees of New York Medical College, and is the chair of its audit committee.
Yoel Mayerfeld
Yoel Mayerfeld serves as the Co-CEO of Chase Properties, where he oversaw the company's asset management and financing operations for 17 years and currently leads growth in industrial, multifamily, and capital markets. He joined Chase Properties in 2005, initially as the head of Finance.
Before joining Chase Properties, Mr. Mayerfeld held the position of Managing Director in the Equity Derivatives group at Commerzbank. During his four-year tenure, he specialized in trading structured products, and for two years, he led the trading activities for the business. Mr. Mayerfeld began his career as an Index Derivatives Trader at Bankers Trust which later became Deutsche Bank.
Mr. Mayerfeld sits on the Finance and Investment Committee of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland and has served on the board of the Ohio State Teachers Retirement System and served on their investment committee for 10 years. Yoel is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) as well as a Wexner Fellow. He is also on the Yeshiva University Real Estate Advisory Board.
Mr. Mayerfeld is a graduate of Yeshiva University's Sy Syms School of Business with a Bachelor’s degree in Finance.
Bruce Schanzer
Bruce Schanzer is Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Erez Asset Management, LLC, a fund manager focused on investment opportunities in small market cap REITs. Prior to forming Erez in 2022, Mr. Schanzer was President, CEO and a director of Cedar Realty Trust (NYSE: CDR), a real estate investment trust focused on the ownership, operation, and redevelopment of grocery-anchored shopping centers in the Washington, DC to Boston corridor. During his 11-year tenure at Cedar, he helped cause the company to go from an underperformer to an outperformer relative to the FTSE NAREIT Shopping Center REIT Index.
Before joining Cedar in 2011, he was a managing director in the real estate investment banking group at Goldman Sachs & Co and prior thereto a vice president at Merrill Lynch. Before working on Wall Street, Bruce was a real estate attorney in New York.
Bruce received an MBA in finance and accounting from the University of Chicago, a JD from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (Yeshiva University) where he was a member of the Law Review and a BA from Yeshiva University where he now serves on the board of their business school.
Laura Sugarman
Partner/ Real Estate
Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff LLP
Laura represents national and local developers, owners, landlords, tenants, lenders, borrowers, and investors in various real estate transactions. She has expertise in handling sophisticated real estate matters, including financing, acquisitions, dispositions, leasing, air rights, and corporate structuring. With a focus on condominium and cooperative development and management, her reach includes national and international clients. Laura is one of New York’s go-to resources for the structuring and forming of leasehold condominiums and has recently been quoted in The New York Times and Brick Underground. She previously served for the New York State Comptroller, the United States Attorneys’ Office, and the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation Department. Laura received her J.D. from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and her B.A. from New York University.
Simon Ziff
Simon Ziff serves as president of Ackman-Ziff, a position he assumed in 1995. Since joining the firm as an Analyst in 1989, Simon has overseen the arrangement of 100+ billion of debt, mezzanine, and equity financings for some of the nation’s foremost real estate developers and owners while simultaneously solidifying the firm’s relationships with key capital sources. He engineered the firm’s unique, collaborative culture and directed AZ’s evolution as an industry thought leader with over 50 professionals.
Simon received a B.S. in Finance from The Pennsylvania State University and an M.S. in Real Estate Finance from NYU. He has been recognized on multiple occasions by Penn State and NYU, as well as being awarded REBNY’s first “Most Promising Commercial Salesperson” award, the “Most Ingenious Deal of the Year” award six times and winning the prestigious Louis Smadbeck award.
Simon has also been active in many leadership roles for universities and not-for-profit organizations.