Remembering Bisnow CEO Will Friend: ‘He Taught Me How To Be A Boss’
When Will Friend was 15 years old, he traveled alone from the United Kingdom to Washington, D.C., and after a few days he called his parents across the Atlantic to break some news: He wasn’t coming back.
Most teenagers could never have gotten away with such a bold move, but most kids weren’t Will and not only did he get away with it — he convinced them that it was a good idea.
So, he left the prestigious Harrow School in London, made famous by his idol Sir Winston Churchill, and set off for a new life. As he recalled later, he just instantly “fell in love with America.”
“I could feel the American dream,” Friend said in 2019 on The Fort podcast. “It’s hard to truly appreciate what that feels like until you’ve lived somewhere else. Anything is possible in America, and it’s important to never take that for granted.”
By all accounts, he never did. Motivating people to go to places within themselves and push beyond their own self-perceived limits was a hallmark of Will’s personality, but his first project was himself, and coming to the U.S. alone as a teenager was an early glimpse of the man Will became.
Through sheer determination, it worked out quite well for Will.
By the time he turned 27, he had already risen through the ranks of Bisnow to become its CEO. He transformed the company from a local, family-run events business into a global company that now boasts 350 annual digital and live events in 50 international territories, 11 million news readers and more than 300 employees across the U.S., Canada, the UK and Ireland.
However, one year ago over the Fourth of July weekend, Will died tragically at the age of 33.
To mark the occasion, I sat down with two people who knew Will the best: his friend and business partner, Bisnow CEO Gregg Mayer, and his wife, Bevin Prince-Friend, now the CEO and founder of Recess in Wilmington, North Carolina, where she and Will lived.
“I can look back now with a clear vision and it was almost like Will understood that his amount of time was limited on this planet,” Prince-Friend said last week. “There was no space for him to sit back. More than anyone I have ever met he made every second count — and he did that for his company and for his family.”
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
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MARK BONNER: We all lost someone special to us last summer. At the end of 2022, I wrote about what Will meant to me. How do you all convey what Will meant to you and your life?
GREGG MAYER: In life, you can take a lot of things for granted. When I look back, I don't think I realized how close we actually were. I mean, we talked all the time. Every single day. Weekends, too. As my wife has told me — and I think Bevin said this to me, too — Will was my business spouse. And it really took me some time to reflect on that and to actually realize all of these things we talked about — the big things, the serious things and the stupid things we used to joke about. We started our day together and we ended our day together. And it was comforting and I valued that and I think about the way we were together all of the time.
BEVIN PRINCE-FRIEND: I'm not just mourning the loss of Will. You all are, too. Every single one of you at Bisnow. Will spent his day-to-day with you guys. I heard all of the phone calls and I know so many people’s voices — I even know what Gregg sounds like when he eats [LAUGHTER]. Bisnow was a huge part of his life and mine, too, so not only do I mourn him, but I miss those voices and I miss Bisnow. There are really no words that I can find that can express the magnitude of his impact on me and my life. And everyone who was fortunate enough to meet him, you knew instantly he was a force of nature. He taught me how to be a boss. He believed so deeply in people's potential — their power and their capacity for growth. And he relentlessly fought for it. And I was lucky enough to benefit the most from that. And there is no piece of me that could stand here today without the love he so selflessly gave to me every single day.
MAYER: When I joined the business, he still had a lot of growing to do to become the chief executive that he was when he passed, but he didn't require any growth in terms of ambition. He always had that. He believed in himself and the team he built so much that he could just manifest things into existence. And I think that's how he lived his life. And he was such a young guy. And I am so impressed by that and I learned so much from him — and grew myself — by just being around him.
PRINCE-FRIEND: He waited until date three to tell me how old he was. And at that point, I was too, too in love to care that he was 25. I was too in love to care. He was a natural leader and that was so much fun to be around.
BONNER: In different ways, Bisnow was either in the background or the foreground of your relationship with Will. What is your strongest recollection of that dynamic?
PRINCE-FRIEND: Will was really, really impressive at balancing that. I know that I am the luckiest girl in the world. And one of the greatest things I will have ever experienced in my lifetime was watching his commitment to Bisnow, watching his commitment to his team and watching him take the time to care about their personal and professional growth. For him, Bisnow was 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It was on his brain. Everybody's well-being and where they were in their life, the choices they were making on the field and off the field. It was his passion.
MAYER: When Will passed I felt a lot of things but one of the things I felt was like, man, we stole him. Bevin didn't have enough time with him as they were beginning the next phase of their lives together in North Carolina. And the most amazing thing for me through his passing — the biggest thing that still amazes me is that Bevin and her entire family did not feel shorted at all. I was shocked. I mean, truly shocked. There must have been two of him because he gave 150% to Bisnow and Will’s family felt like he had given them 150%, too. Where did that extra 150% come from? I actually don't know how he did it. So, you know, as much as Bisnow was a big part of his life, the most gratifying thing to me is that Bisnow actually wasn't his entire life.
PRINCE-FRIEND: Yeah, it's really amazing. I never once felt shorted. I never once felt that way. The thing about Will is he didn't really believe in work-life balance. He believed in work-life integration. So there were many, many times that we sat around this table as a family. And we listened and we supported Will and reminded him of all the strengths that we saw in him — and somehow he still had the energy to give it all back to us. And I mean he did wake up pretty early most days just obnoxiously fully amped. And he went until midnight, fully amped. I can look back now with a clear vision and it was almost like Will understood that his amount of time was limited on this planet. There was no space for him to sit back. More than anyone I have ever met he made every second count — and he did that for his company and for his family.
MAYER: It was a supernatural power. It blows my mind to this day.
PRINCE-FRIEND: Yeah, I mean, he would be on calls with you guys and somehow still cooking me a gourmet meal for dinner — and then manage to find a one-hour window to sit down and look me in the eye. And I just don't know who gets that lucky.
BONNER: From our chat earlier, I know that a big part of our shared desire is that Bisnow employees — especially the new people who join our team — remember Will and everything he meant for our business. For those who did not know him, how do you explain his impact at Bisnow and the greater commercial real estate community?
MAYER: We inform, connect and advance the commercial real estate industry to do more business. That’s our mission statement and he worked hard to develop those words and he took it seriously. I mean, every conversation I had with him — every conversation I would hear him have with our employees — he would talk about hitting that mark. And if you could hit that mark, you're relevant and if you're relevant, you’ve got a very successful business, which I am proud to say we do. Our culture is one of extreme ownership, unabashed kindness, teamwork, excellent communications and working hard for our customers and for each other because we care more than the competition and we give our best today and even better tomorrow. Will built that, so in a sense Will isn’t really gone because that’s our mission, that’s our values and they continue to drive us to this day and they will continue to drive us in the years ahead.
When Will was considering hiring someone he was never looking for “culture fits.” He would tell me that he was looking for people who were culture accretive — you know, people who were going to deepen and enhance our values and our business. That’s genius and it works. People want to be a part of that culture, they want to be a part of a winning culture and that mindset helps us to get people into our doors. Like Will, our employees want to have the ability to grow and be a CEO at a really, really young age. And at least in Bisnow’s case, none of that went away when tragedy struck — and that’s the ultimate compliment to him, in my opinion.
BONNER: People remember Will as the CEO of Bisnow, but they don't remember him as an entry-level employee. They don't remember him working for a small company with a handful of guys in a Washington, D.C. bedroom — working on the events team or in human resources or payroll or anything else you do when you join a tiny startup. When he hired me he was already the CEO at 27 years old. We have a lot of young people like that at Bisnow who have worked here for 10 or even 15 years — completely unheard of these days. But that’s Bisnow’s unique culture and Will Friend was one of those people.
PRINCE-FRIEND: The thing about Will was that no job was too small for him and no job was beneath him — and no job was too big for him. Everything he did, he gave it 100%. It didn't matter what it was. Nobody’s job title mattered to him. For him, it was about character and effort and everyone’s role mattered, which is why he did so much at every level of Bisnow. I know we can all say we've been in conversations with Will where we were 100% sure he wasn't listening to a word that we were saying. We've all been there.
MAYER: [LAUGHING] Not the best multi-tasker. He would always say I am great at it.
PRINCE-FRIEND: But when he chose to really dial in — and he knew when the right time was to do that — he really saw people and he saw their potential. He would do everything possible to help them get there and I think that stemmed from his own personal and professional journey.
BONNER: Will was a tremendous loss, but Bisnow has forged ahead. How did the team muster that strength to keep going — and what has happened at Bisnow this last year that inspires you?
MAYER: I don't want to say it was easy, but it was easy. Everyone knew exactly what to do. Because we knew exactly what Will would have done. Our mission since that day has been to not simply make sure the company would be OK or just as good as it would be had he still been here as CEO. That wouldn’t have been good enough for him. We want to make the company even better than it he could have done with it. That’s the challenge he would have laid down and it is the challenge we have had to undertake over the last year — and the one that will continue to drive us forward. Will would run Iron Mans and marathons with little to zero preparation just for fun, just to challenge himself and to see what he was actually made of. And so, when he died he gave us all this challenge, our own marathon to run. So, to every single one of us he gave us this final test to see what we are made of.
And candidly, for me personally, I'd rather never have known this, but I have figured out that I have places within me that I can go to that I didn't realize that I’ve had in me, which I've taken into my personal life, which I am really proud of. Anyway, it was easy to carry on because we built a great organization and hired a lot of really talented people. I will let other people be the final judge, but our business is absolutely thriving. Our employees had to find it in them to move forward. They took on the mission to become a better company than before.
We’re accomplishing our mission. Our numbers are up. Our readership is up. Attendance at our events is up. Will would be proud and then some.
PRINCE-FRIEND: For every single one of us, he forced us into a year of expansion. And although I didn't want to do any of the things that I've been forced to do this past year, I expanded, I grew and I did it. It's never been a question of whether or not I can do it because I know what Will would want me to do.
BONNER: What is the best way for Bisnow to carry on Will's legacy?
MAYER: The best way to carry out his legacy is to care more than the competition, to value one another, to fight for one another as a company and to continuously improve and not be afraid to fail. As long as we do those things, his legacy will be set in stone. And look, what I would also say is that the coolest thing about it, too — and I know he'd be proud of this — is that this isn't Will’s Bisnow. It isn’t Gregg’s Bisnow either. It's way bigger than that now, and I am excited to see where it goes over the next few years.
PRINCE-FRIEND: You know, Will wasn't a man that ever got complacent. There's no such thing as complacency in his world, right? He continued to actively search and find ways to grow and expand personally and professionally. And I think that if, as a team, you can show up for each other in the way that you guys have all shown up for me and you continue to actively strive to be bigger, to be better, there's no way that Will’s legacy will be lost. Just keep pushing to be the absolute best and brightest version of yourself.
