New York, NY –MWBE Unite, Inc. the one-stop platform for diverse suppliers in Commercial Real Estate announces the appointments of Asmau Ahmed and Lisa Ackerman to the Board of Directors, effective immediately.
MWBE Unite, a platform supplier incubated by JRT Realty, is a significant step forward in bridging diverse suppliers and client needs to create accessible opportunities by syndicating M/WBEs firms and talented CRE individuals with the ultimate goal of advancing inclusionary practices across all aspects of the built environment. Working with MWBE Unite drives a unique opportunity for organizations to meet their diversity commitments while also taking advantage of quality industry expertise.
“We are extremely honored to have leaders such as Asmau and Lisa join us on the mission to improve diversity in the CRE sector. Their expertise and guidance will accelerate MWBE Unite’s progress,” said Pay Wu, President and Co-founder of MWBE Unite.
Asmau Ahmed is a senior leader at X (formerly Google X), Alphabet’s innovation factory. She sits on the boards of CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and Quinstreet (NASDAQ: QNST). She serves as an advisor to the Yale Entrepreneurship Society and is a member of the Opportunity Leadership Council.
She has a foundation in Engineering and Finance and over 20 years of experience as a venture-funded CEO, operating executive, and management consultant. She has led over $10B in digitally enabled innovations and operations spanning multiple industries including technology, consumer retail, manufacturing, and financial services. She is skilled at balancing disruptive innovation with operational, fiscal, risk management and regulatory compliance rigor.
Prior to joining X, Asmau was Managing Director of Business and Technology at Bank of America where she worked with senior leaders and CEOs of Bank of America, Citi, JPMC, BNYM, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, State Street, and Morgan Stanley – collective known as the US SIBs, to design and implement technology solutions to the industry’s most pressing challenges including Cyber Security, Third Party Risk, Identity and more.
Asmau has been recognized as a “Top Woman in Digital” by Cynopsis Media; “Black Business and Tech Professionals Changing the Game” by Huffington Post; and one of “26 Women Of Color Diversifying Entrepreneurship In Silicon Valley, Media, And Beyond” by Vanity Fair.
She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS with Honors in Chemical Engineering from the University of Virginia. Asmau is a mother to two children. Her most recent passion project, inspired by her son, involves finding solutions to integrate special needs children into mainstream classrooms and camps.
Lisa Ackerman serves as Executive Director of Columbus Citizens Foundation, an organization devoted to Italian culture and Italian American heritage. CCF provides more than $2 million annually in scholarships and offers a broad range of public programs. Previously, Ms. Ackerman served as Interim CEO of World Monuments in 2018 and 2019, after having served as EVP & COO from 2007 to 2018.
Prior to her work in international heritage conservation, Ms. Ackerman served as Executive Vice President of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, an organization focused on art history, art conservation, the development of scholarly resources, and graduate education. She worked in the Education Department of the Museum of Modern Art during the time the Visual Thinking Curriculum was developed and worked with school groups and family programs to make art more accessible to younger visitors. She is currently Chair of Historic House Trust of New York City and of the New York Preservation Archive Project. She is a member of the board of the Alabama African American Civil Rights Heritage Sites Consortium. Ms. Ackerman also serves on the board of ASOR. She has served on the Boards of US ICOMOS, Partners for Sacred Places, and the Neighborhood Preservation Center. She holds an appointment as Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute. She holds an MS in Historic Preservation from Pratt Institute, an MBA from New York University, and a BA from Middlebury College.
About MWBE Unite, Inc
MWBE Unite, Inc. offers credentialed expertise across the full range of programmatic services that cover the greatest needs/challenges currently faced by the real estate industry. The power of MWBE Unite enables organizations to meet billion-dollar supplier diversity commitments and achieve Tier 1 and Tier 2 status from their real estate lifecycle spend. Real estate, as the third largest selling, general and administrative spend category is an untapped lever in achieving ESG and DEI goals, across all dimensions of services and assets. MWBE Unite is the solution to generational challenges with generational impact.
About JRT Realty
JRT is certified as a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise (WBE) by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), National Minority Business Council (NMBC) and numerous other state and local entities. Today, the company is recognized as an industry leader and the nation’s largest certified WBE commercial real estate firm. The company’s benchmark for superior service enables non-profits, federal, state and City governments, as well as Fortune 500 and institutional clients to achieve their diversity participation and spending goals through innovative business solutions. JRT provides a full range of customized client services, including strategic planning, corporate real estate portfolio management, tenant representation, leasing and property marketing, and investment sales.
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