Seattle Sustainability

A-P Hurd’s 25-year career spans real estate, finance and technology. Her experience running a real estate company and developing nearly $3B of new buildings in Seattle has made her a strong investment and risk manager—in addition to having a deep understanding of how her supply chain comes together to create value. A-P is known for her ability to innovate in a highly regulated industry and think strategically about how public policy and technology are shaping her sector. Since founding SkipStone in 2017, A-P has supported clients such as Sound Transit, the City of San Jose, the City of Bellevue, Community Roots Housing (formerly Capitol Hill Housing), as well as several private developers bringing projects to market. Prior to SkipStone, AP spent 10 years at Touchstone where she assembled a new leadership team and execute a merger/transition from a founder-led company. In 2014 Touchstone was successfully acquired by Urban Renaissance Group, and A-P became President until the completion of the portfolio of projects in August 2017. A-P was responsible for the company’s overall financial performance including operating P&L and investment returns. Under her leadership, the company earned several awards (including National Developer of the Year,) and completed projects that set the high-water mark in Seattle for largest commercial lease, highest sales price per square foot, and highest sales price overall for a single project. A-P has also been a Runstad Fellow and faculty member in the Runstad Real Estate Department at the University of Washington, and published The Carbon Efficient City with the University of Washington Press. Prior to Touchstone, A-P’s career was focused in operations and software development. She worked for an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software provider, and her work there (as well as much of her graduate research) concentrated on complex systems architecture. For a few years she also traded interest rate derivatives for Royal Bank of Canada, the largest Canadian bank. In that role, she worked closely with corporate treasuries and developed her risk management skills.