A Talk With Glenn Rufrano - Part 1
Glenn has been described as "Mr. Fix It" and the "Turnaround Titan" for his successful leadership in re-engineering several national and international real estate firms
I work with professionals across varied industries. Specific challenges differ, but certain themes consistently emerge. Whether clients are executives or rising talent, they seek to make thoughtful career decisions, develop or refine their leadership skills, and be equipped to deal with challenges of all sorts.
I’m excited to share insights on these topics and more from a talk with Glenn Rufrano. I worked with Glenn from 2001 through 2011. He has been impactful on my career, and I deeply value my ongoing relationship with him.
Glenn is one of the most accomplished leaders in the commercial real estate industry through CEO roles, board positions, work with the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), and more.
Glenn’s perspectives offer valuable lessons to professionals at all levels and extend beyond real estate.
IN PART 1, Glenn discusses knowing your talent, following your passion, and assessing opportunities through the lens of his career.
IN PART 2, I captured learnings (so many!) from our conversation. Whether you’re a student, mid-career professional, or running your own show, these are golden.
Finally, Glenn is invested in young talent, speaking at colleges and universities and he is the Chair of the ICSC Foundation, the non-profit arm of ICSC dedicated to creating a vibrant retail and real estate industry by building a pipeline of bright, ambitious and diverse talent that can drive the industry forward. The Foundation partners with 70 colleges and universities. Real estate students pay nothing to become Foundation members and can apply for scholarships, mentors, and practical internships with real estate companies. Students interested in joining and professionals interested in becoming mentors can learn more HERE
PART 1:
Glenn’s career spans four decades:
Co-founder of The O’Connor Group, now known as O’Connor Capital Partners
CEO roles at New Plan Excel Realty Trust, Centro Properties Group, Cushman & Wakefield and VEREIT
ICSC Past Chairman, 2024; currently Chairman, ICSC Foundation
Board positions at Trizec Properties, Criimi Mae, GGP and Ventas
In 2024 Glenn became Executive Chairman of the Board of PREIT following the firm’s emergence from Chapter 11
Contributor to NYU’s Real Estate Institute and Baruch College
Here are highlights from our conversation.
CAROLYN: Awhile back I read guidance aimed at young professionals that said: Forget the advice to follow your dreams, instead, follow the opportunity. What is your perspective on that advice?
GLENN: Well first, I would try to define passion, and if passion means making a lot of money, I agree with that statement 100%, especially in the early years. I've always advised people that you have to become more valuable. If you become more valuable, you will make money. If you focus on money, you may not become more valuable because you won’t learn as much. And so, if the definition of passion is money, I agree with that statement 100%.
The next part I'm mixed on, because what I have often advised students is that the first thing you should be thinking about is understanding what is your talent. Everybody has something they do better than other people. Because if you can understand that and move in that direction from an employment standpoint, you have a higher probability of succeeding because you're using your maximum talent to succeed. Some people have a talent for speaking well and selling, others may be mathematically oriented, so follow your logical path. Think about where you believe you can excel. That's important. The second part is, think about your passion -- what you want to do – because you’ve got to like it. If you can move in that direction too, you will have comfort in your talent and really like the position. It's here that the ability to succeed gets much higher.
So I think passion can have a role in understanding where you go next. I would hope that by getting the education, not worrying about money, moving towards where you think you can best succeed, and really liking it, that will help you understand the opportunity in front of you.
CAROLYN: Staying with theme of opportunities here… As you reflect on yours, is there one opportunity that stands out, one that you’re especially glad you saw and seized, or maybe one whose outcome surprised you after the fact?
GLENN: I think I've had a number of really good opportunities, but to start with you have to have confidence in yourself to even choose them.
For instance, the first big opportunity was in 1983 when I was working for a company called Landauer, a very well thought of real estate firm in the City. We had appraisal, brokerage, investment management, and I had done a number of transactions with some very important people in the New York real estate community, one of them being Jerry O'Connor.
Jerry approached me saying he was going to start a company – at that moment it was just him and his admin – and he’d like me to join as the first person in the company. I was more junior than him, of course, but that was a huge opportunity, and I admit to being pretty scared. When I explained this opportunity to my wife, Mary, I didn’t have many answers to her very many, very valid questions: She asked, “Well, what exactly are you going to do?” I said, “Well, we're not sure. We just know it's real estate, but we're not sure.” She said, “Well, how much will you be getting paid?” I said, “Well, nothing in the beginning, until we can start generating income.” And she said, “What are you talking about? We have two little kids, and we have a mortgage!”
But this was an opportunity to step out into a more entrepreneurial role with somebody who I liked and trusted. It was a huge change and a huge risk. I took it and we did very well at O’Connor.
Then, in 2000, I got a call asking if I’d be interested in being the CEO of a public company called New Plan Excel Realty Trust, which had just gone through a merger, pretty ugly. At the time, to be frank, I didn't know it was a great opportunity.
I had spent 17 years building O’Connor, I was comfortable, and my thought was why give that up and enter the public markets? Bill Ferguson (Ferguson Partners) helped me understand that opportunity is to do something you haven't done in the past. In this case it was leading a public company which was very different from running the business I was in. Bill explained this role could be very rewarding, not just in money, but it could be personally very satisfying. He told me, an opportunity like this one didn’t come along often.
So in the case of New Plan, I had to be convinced of the opportunity and it turned out to be great. It launched a whole new career for me in turning around companies.
Seven years later at New Plan, we sold the company to Centro in Australia, and we did very well financially. It was all cash. We didn't do it for stock. I was running the American company, and someone came along and said, the parent is in a lot of trouble, and we need someone to be the CEO of the parent. Would you move to Australia to run Centro? Now there, I thought it was a great opportunity. I could see it right away, because I knew the assets we had were good. I knew the people we had were good. I knew something about the assets in Australia and they were good -- and I knew the problem was at the head.
This turned out to be a real problem for all turnarounds, whether it was the leadership, the board, or both. In a turnaround situation, it needed to be changed. This meant bringing in new people. And if you could find people to take those positions, opportunities would spring up.
At Centro, we had to avoid foreclosure. And we did it. We got the debt holders not to take the company. We lived on standstill agreements for two years, and then we were able to negotiate a three-year agreement with all 23 lenders without any default provisions of any consequence, so we had three years to live. The work during those three years allowed us to be sold to Blackstone and that opportunity was easier to see because I was entrenched in New Plan, which was the heart of the organization. The Blackstone opportunity was great.
Cushman Wakefield -- we were able to take that company from losing money to making money in three years, using some of the same philosophies, and also having some luck because of timing. But it was a great opportunity to be in the brokerage business, which was totally different from our principal business.
This led me to the best opportunity of them all, which was American Realty Capital Partners (ARCP). We changed the name to VEREIT. This situation was by far the most troublesome. Because in this situation, there was not only a real estate problem in that we had lack of diversification in our tenants, but we also had a debt problem, and we had litigation. There was nothing messier than the ARCP. But I thought that it was the best opportunity of all, because the real estate was ultimately simple net lease, and I knew something about the company through my time at Cushman Wakefield, and I had the ability to make changes at the top, which were very necessary.
And then in 2024, I got the PREIT opportunity and I’m still there. PREIT was a public company. It’s private now and coming out of bankruptcy for the second time, and I'm the Executive Chair. It’s similar to other situations I’ve been in, but frankly, easier because it’s less messy and I’ve done it. I have experience to draw on.