Reinventing New Jersey

Gary Mottola is the immediate past president (and currently senior executive) at Madison Marquette, a leading developer, owner and operator of creative commercial and mixed-use projects throughout the United States. He has led Madison’s efforts to revitalize the Asbury Park waterfront. Mr. Mottola has been active in real estate development for many years. His career also includes time as an attorney at a prominent international law firm, lecturer in constitutional law, co-owner of a major thoroughbred training facility, and restaurateur. He is presently a member of the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey Hall of Fame, was a founding member of the board of a regional theater company in northern New Jersey, and is active in efforts to stop animal abuse.

Ralph Zucker is President of Somerset Development, one of the New York Metropolitan region’s foremost pioneers of New Urbanism and Traditional Neighborhood Design development. Throughout his career, Zucker has worked hands-on in every facet of the building and development process, and has demonstrated a commitment to working with municipalities to create innovative communities based on the principles of New Urbanism. Zucker is perhaps best known for Bell Works, the two-million-square-foot redevelopment of the former Bell Labs property in Holmdel, N.J., where he and the Somerset Development team successfully transformed the iconic Saarinen-designed research facility into a “metroburb,” a term that Somerset coined to describe the suburban building’s revival into a blossoming, downtown-style ecosystem of technology, traditional office, retail, dining and hospitality. Today, Zucker and his team are in the midst of redeveloping The Ameritech Center in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, originally built as the former AT&T research facility, into Bell Works Chicagoland. The 1.65-million square foot building, which has already welcomed retail and office tenants, is quickly transforming into another successful metroburb. Under Zucker’s leadership, Somerset and its projects have earned numerous industry awards and recognition for their contributions to furthering responsible development practices, including the New Jersey Future Smart Growth Award for Wesmont Station, Somerset's 70-acre transit-oriented mixed-use redevelopment located in Wood-Ridge, N.J., where Somerset partnered with NJ TRANSIT to build a brand new train station that provides access to Manhattan.

Jose is a senior managing director and co-office head in the New Jersey office of JLL Capital Markets, Americas. He joins JLL as part of the HFF acquisition and is a member of the firm’s leadership committee. Jose specializes in investment advisory throughout New Jersey, New York and Connecticut and also oversees the day-to-day operations of the firm’s New Jersey office. During the course of his more than 25-year commercial real estate career, he’s been involved in more than $62 billion of office, industrial, retail, multifamily and land sales. Jose started at HFF in March 2010. Before that, he was the executive director of Cushman & Wakefield’s New York area investment sales group where he spent more than 17 years. He began his real estate career as a real estate analyst at PaineWebber, UBS, Inc.

Mr. Alexander is a licensed landscape architect with over 15 years of experience leading teams from concept design through construction administration. He has a broad range of private and public sector experience including residential, institutional, and commercial design. His credentials and experience include project management, proposal development, preparation of programs, conceptual solutions, cost estimates and final design production including: contract drawings, custom details, specifications, bid documents, site inspections, shop drawing reviews, presentation, and expert testimony.

Steve Nislick is currently Chief Financial Officer of Hugo Neu Corporation, a privately owned company that builds, operates and invests in innovative real estate, recycling, energy, and other cleantech ventures. Steve is retired from Edison Properties, LLC, after 40 years, where he was Chief Executive Officer. As CEO, he was responsible for all aspects of financial, operating and administrative performance of all Edison businesses. Steve is Founder and President of NYCLASS (New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets). Through NYCLASS, he has been actively involved with various animal rights organizations such as ASPCA, PETA, HSUS, etc. to transform the horse-drawn carriage industry and replace the carriage horses with a fleet of green-powered replica antique cars. He has been involved with horses since 1991 and is deeply interested in the welfare and inhumane treatment of horses. Steve has lived on Central Park West since 1994 and has personally seen the constant abuse and mistreatment of carriage horses. Steve and his wife, Linda, own 4 horses; 2 event horses, 1 dressage horse and 1 rescued carriage horse, Chance. Chance is a 7 year-old Percheron who had only been on the streets for 3 years and began to suffer from founder. She was sent to slaughter by her owner for the price of $400. After being rescued, Chance was given the proper treatment and rest to let her feet recover and she is doing great. Until recently, Steve was actively involved in non profit causes, and sat on the boards of several local organizations, including the Princeton Blairstown Center, Board of Milano - the New School for Management and Urban Policy and the NYC Citizens Budget Commission. Steve has contributed close to $500,000 to The Carolina Center for Jewish Studies at The University of North Carolina. Steve earned a BS in accounting from the Universtity of North Carolina and is a Certified Public Accountant in the state of New Jersey.

As Co-Founder, Managing Principal, and Investment Committee officer of Onyx Equities, LLC, Jonathan Schultz oversees the organization’s investor capital raising initiatives, strategic planning, portfolio management, and business development, as well as formulating overall investment strategy. In addition, Jonathan has shepherded the Receivership Services platform of Onyx Equities which, since its commencement, has fast become the largest of its kind in the tri-state area. Jonathan has been responsible for initiating and closing billions of dollars in leasing and commercial real estate sales and acquisitions during his career to date. Prior to forming Onyx Equities, Jonathan was Founder and President of The Schultz Organization. The Schultz Organization and its affiliates provided commercial real estate brokerage and advisory services to institutions, lenders, private owners, and tenants. The Schultz Organization provided third party clients with leasing and/or management services for over 200 commercial properties totaling over 15 million square feet in the tri-state area. Jonathan is a member of the Metro NY chapter of YPO. He is a Founding Board Member of the “Award Of Courage” Foundation, raising significant funds for Memorial Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center, and is a past recipient of their Humanitarian Award. Jonathan has been recognized as one of the “Commercial Brokerage All-Stars,” by Real Estate New York, he was twice named one of “New Jersey’s Most Successful Business Executives under 40” by Business News New Jersey, one of the country’s “Hottest Real Estate Brokers” by Commercial Property News, and one of the “Power Players of the Next Generation” by Real Estate NJ

Chris is the CEO and President of WorkWave. He is responsible for setting the overall direction and product strategy for the company. Since joining WorkWave in 2008, Chris has grown the business over 400%, transforming the company through heavy investment and 9 strategic acquisitions from a single market, single product company into a leading provider of cloud based solutions for the field service and last mile logistics industries. Prior to WorkWave, Chris held several senior executive roles at ServiceMaster, a leading provider of services for homes and businesses, including that of Corporate Vice President of Internet Marketing and Retail Initiatives. Prior to ServiceMaster, Chris held senior executive roles with OurHouse.com, a leading Internet e-commerce company; Applied Value and PRTM, management consulting firms; and Alcatel Lucent, a leader in the telecommunications equipment industry. Chris has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech and an M.B.A. with Honors in finance, strategy and entrepreneurship from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Jay is a partner at BrandProject and a personal early stage seed investor in New Jersey affiliated startups. Jay has over 20 years of experience building and managing Internet businesses and brings broad consumer and tech expertise to BrandProject. Jay has built and invested in startups in all major tech hubs of the US (Seattle, SF, NY). Previously, Jay was the co-founder of spock.com, the world’s leading people search engine. In 6 short months after launch, it became one of the top 1000 sites on the Internet and was covered by publications including The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Forbes, Newsweek, ABC News, NBC, and the Financial Times. Spock was sold in May of 2009 at which time it was generating over 50 million monthly searches. Jay has an MBA from the Wharton School and an Engineering Degree with highest honors from Rutgers University.

Scott Feldman is a Managing Director with Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE), a private equity fund affiliated with Susquehanna International Group. He focuses on the financial services, healthcare IT and human resources technology. He currently serves on the boards of Credit Karma, Fundera, HMP Communications, iCIMS, iContracts, JK Group, and MMIT. He previously served on the board of Clearleap (acquired by IBM). Before joining SGE, Scott was an investment banker with Broadmark Capital, a technology-focused merchant banking firm based in Seattle and New York with concentrations in the information services, business services, and telecommunications sectors. Scott served as a Managing Director at Broadmark until joining SGE in 2006. He began his career at Gabelli & Company and worked directly for the founder Mario Gabelli, widely considered one of the greatest value investors of all time. Scott's past investments and clients include Arbinet Corporation (NASDAQ: ARBX, acquired by Primus Telecom), Automated Resource Group (acquired by iPacesetters), UFO Communications (NASDAQ: CCOI), InterpNAP Network Services (NASDAQ: INAP), Universal Access (NASDAQ: UAXS, acquired by Vanco/Reliance), and Yipes Communications (acquired by Reliance). Scott graduated with a B.S. in Finance from the Wallace E. Carroll School of Management at Boston College with concentrations in Economics and Computer Science.