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The Smart Agency presents GlobeSt Women of Influence.
Jenn Quader (00:08)
What does it take to grow a company for nearly two decades and then step into the role that touches everything? Today's guest on The Smart Agency Presents, GlobeSt Women of Influence has done exactly that. Cassie Hrtanek is the chief operating officer of the Inland Real Estate Group, LLC, one of the most enduring and consequential real estate organizations in the country.
Founded in 1968, Inland is one of the nation's largest vertically integrated commercial real estate investment, finance, development, and operating groups. Now, Inland has some amazing stats. The company has raised and invested over $31 billion in equity, conducted more than $27 billion in market transactions, acquired over $56 billion in commercial real estate, and currently manages approximately $16 billion across 42 states. And guys, we get to talk to the person
who is integrally involved in this. Today we are speaking to Cassie, who joined Inland 2005 as assistant counsel. Now she rose through the organization to become associate general counsel and senior vice president, and she advised across real estate securities, company-wide technology initiatives, corporate governance. Now in May of 2024, she was appointed chief operating officer, where she now oversees human resources.
information technology, risk management, communications, marketing, and she also is a formerly recognized GlobeSt woman of influence. She was recognized in the category of corporate real estate executive, and she's just a powerful example of what it looks like to build deep, lasting institutional knowledge and translate that into enterprise-wide leadership.
Listeners, please join me in welcoming the amazing Cassie Hrtanek of Inland. Cassie, welcome.
Cassie Hrtanek (01:55)
Thank you so much and thank you for that amazing introduction. I feel awesome.
Jenn Quader (02:01)
Well, you should feel awesome because of all that you have done in the industry. What
a career and what a brand. I have to say, I just came from ICSC. I saw the big inland booth. mean, what a presence you guys have.
Cassie Hrtanek (02:10)
Yeah.
We do, yeah, we've been doing ICSC for so many years and it's also very historical for us. Our founder, Joe Cosenza, was integrally part of it for so many years and he's a beloved person for all of us. So we miss him dearly and he will always have that legacy there, yeah.
Jenn Quader (02:34)
Well, and that's something that's so important about the commercial real estate industry. It is very personal. We all say it's very relationship driven. It's very personal. And I think that's really one of the biggest reasons we're here, Cassie. And I again want to say thank you for your time. You're doing huge things, but you're also giving of yourself to give this time to those who are listening who will be joining us in Denver. And I'll remind everyone that is July 13th.
Cassie Hrtanek (02:39)
so true.
Jenn Quader (02:56)
and 14th in Denver for the GlobeSt Women of Influence. And Cassie's gonna be on a panel speaking from the stage. And so we get a little bit of a sneak peek into what she's gonna talk about. So Cassie, I would like to get into the very biggest news, which is that Inland just announced that you are moving. So Inland, you are, tell me about it.
Cassie Hrtanek (03:12)
We are.
It's You know, we've been at this campus for over 40 years. It's a big thing for us. We own these buildings basically we are not used to being tenants. We are used to being landlords. We own buildings. We don't normally rent in them. So this is a big change for us But it's also really exciting for all of our employees.
we are excited to welcome people to a new vibrant space where they are excited about coming back to the office. think a lot of us are struggling still with kind of the COVID hangover and the return to office. we
like being in person together helps us maintain our culture, helps drive our productivity, and so we're excited to put that into a new physical space. So we're going from three buildings to one building where we're not only vertically integrated in our business, but we're also going to be vertically integrated in our space. We're really excited. We're going to have three and half floors over there, and we're actually going to have an internal stairway
case connecting all of them. So that is going to be really, really exciting.
Jenn Quader (04:24)
It makes such a huge difference and what I hear is just this cohesion and collaboration as you bring that campus environment into a more vertically integrated environment.
Cassie Hrtanek (04:34)
I'm excited for so many reasons. One, that it's going to be so easy to go and see colleagues for meetings and whatnot. And that I don't have to go outside in the winter in Chicagoland to go to a meeting or make sure I have my umbrella with me or my sunglasses depending on the day and season and weather. So a lot of us are excited about that too.
Jenn Quader (04:55)
Now tell me, sitting in that operational role, again, Inland is, we talked about the stats, you guys manage a tremendous amount of real estate, you have a tremendous amount of history. How do you approach that organizationally? And then how are you building excitement among...
the team within the culture so that they too can see all these benefits of being back in the office and being together.
Cassie Hrtanek (05:17)
So we're moving about 350 people from one place to another.
So we've had to start early.
I think just the news of being in a new space was exciting since, like I said, you know, we've been here for 40, over 40 years. Everybody's ready for a little bit of a facelift. So that's been exciting. We've been announcing it at town halls, sharing pictures, 3D renderings of the new space gets people excited, having them see some of the color palette.
and thinking about, okay, what is it going to look like in this new space? What are the, you know, nice things, the comforting things that we're going to have that are going to make me want to be in the new space? So we've been doing that at the town hall meetings. Also, we are putting together an intranet page. where we provide information for employees it'll be a page that'll include pictures
site plans, videos, and updates about the new space. One final thing that I'm really excited about is that we have an employee who enjoys doing vlogging as a hobby. So he has agreed to do a vlogging series of the new space. So we're going to be hopefully getting that, first one out next week. And it's just super fun. He's somebody that is well known within the company.
and I think it's going to be really exciting for the employees to connect with that vlogging series.
Jenn Quader (06:40)
what a cool thing because again, you're giving everyone a voice. I letting them kind of co-create the move and then love this idea of having the internal vlogger to just give you the experience. I want to ask real quick for those, know, because as you said, you're making a different move here to go into this newer space. You mentioned wellness rooms.
What are the other amenity, what was important to you as you went into this space? what are the cool things this building has?
Cassie Hrtanek (07:06)
we really see Inland as a family. So we wanted it a place that you feel comfortable. so there are going to be a lot of features that feel like home. I think a lot of people enjoy having an island in their homes in the kitchen. Everybody when you have a dinner party or whatever, everybody goes to the kitchen and they're standing around the island.
that makes it cozy and comfortable. when you enter into the space and on each floor, there will be an island with bar stools and kind of kitchen and hydration station
going to have lots more collaboration space because that's something that we find that employees really enjoy. We want to also get them out of their private offices and collaborating with other people when they're in the office. There will be wellness rooms. There will be mother's rooms. Things that just make your experience at work more comfortable
We're also going to be in a building where the landlord is going to be putting in some amenities on the ground floor, which will include a gym for those people who want to work out before or after or during work. And then food service, So people appreciate that kind of amenity when they can just, you know, run down and grab a coffee or lunch or whatever, and don't have to think about bringing it.
And then I think they're going to have a game room and also some kind of like simulators for the golfing people. It's not my people enjoy those kinds of things. So there will be some of those fun amenities too.
Jenn Quader (08:34)
it's fun. you're right, not every game is for everyone, but it's nice to have those opportunities, like you said, if you're just needing a chance to relax or to kind of shake up your energy to have that. really getting the sense that you're a close-knit culture, and Cassie, I'm knowing that you're a big part of that, because you stepped into this role.
of COO and I'm sure that you have made some changes. I'm interested in what have you changed since taking on this where have you put your mark as Chief Operating Officer of Inland?
Cassie Hrtanek (09:05)
Yeah, so it's coming up on two years. I think next week will be two years that I've actually been in this role. I've been at Inland for 21 years. That actually was last weekend I celebrated my 21st anniversary here at Inland, yes. So thank you, pretty exciting. So when I first came into the role,
Jenn Quader (09:12)
Congrats.
Happy 21st.
Cassie Hrtanek (09:29)
it was clear that we needed new leadership in we did a review of the entire process and really determined that moving forward, we wanted to go to an insourcing model. We felt that it's important to keep
And to grow talent here and have it in-house and available for not only our internal employees, but also our clients. We wanted to make their technology experience as good as we possibly could. The department, when I took over, needed new leaders.
I was able to bring somebody from an internal resource and promote him to the Chief Information Officer. our current Chief Information Officer, Jovan Marconi, took the job around October.
2024 and he has really been leading this effort and has grown an amazing team and I'm so excited about all of the work that they're doing. know, including a huge data project, which is something that we feel very strongly about, but is also a multi year project,
Jenn Quader (10:32)
Amazing. And what a timely time to do that. Again, you talked about, you know, anticipating your clients' needs and really giving them the technology experience. One of the things in this series for GlobeSt Women of Influence, we interviewed Sadia Sheik, who's the head of SIOR, and she talked a little bit about technology and adoption and how the adoption of technology is really a big part of the challenge.
And one of the other things that I noticed, Cassie, is that in addition to this focus on technology, you also installed a new head of learning. You implemented a new training platform. Talk to me a little bit about how you are, it seems to me like you're taking a very holistic view to how you're doing it. And then I'd love it if you'd share with us, again, you've been in the seat now two years. ⁓ What surprised you about being in the role and what have you enjoyed about it?
Cassie Hrtanek (11:19)
Yes.
our new director of learning is part of our HR department. I was also faced with new leadership in that department as well. So we hired an awesome new head of HR. She started in January of 2025. She's a fellow attorney, which will be no surprise, I tend to gravitate towards, towards folks who have similar training to myself. She brought on Troy, who's our head of the learning department. And over the years, we've done lots of
training, but we never had an in-house resource to help us direct through all of that.
And as we brought in our self-storage company, we've got tons of training that happens in our residential property management, commercial property management, really across the organization. It was really important for me and Stacey, the head of HR, to have a resource to help us through all of those learning challenges and continue that and like refresh it for management, too. mean, you know, we can only grow
⁓
if we're learning, along the process too, managers need training and learning and development too. So really excited about that. was another change and exciting thing that I've been able to do in this position. But as far as what I was surprised about, one thing that did surprise me, you know, I went from peer to my direct report, my current direct reports to their supervisor. I worked alongside of these folks for a
long time and I didn't know how that would go. I was a little bit anxious about the change in that relationship because I had such good relationships with them and would that be different for me? And I was surprised at how actually easy the transition was. The folks who I had worked so closely along with and then was now their supervisor, they really welcomed my leadership. were super
gracious and kind of the rest is history. We've had a really good relate working relationship since then and I really credit it to one the relationship that I had previous to taking this position.
you know, we had good dialogue, open communication and all of those things. And then also my leadership style when I came into it, know, it was just a continued partnership, just a little more direction, which, you know, I think they all appreciated. So that was something that I was surprised about.
Jenn Quader (13:45)
Well, it sounds like you surprised yourself in all the best ways is how I would say that. Well, and I guess what I'd ask and we'll talk about a little bit at the end too, but if there are listeners out there who are listening to us who might be in the same position, maybe they're about to take over or they're going to step into a role where they're gonna manage people that were once peers. Now that you can look back, what advice would you have for them?
Cassie Hrtanek (13:49)
Yeah, exactly. Right?
I guess I would just say, obviously you've already established a relationship with them as a peer. Hopefully that was a good one. acknowledge the fact that it could be a little awkward at first.
in some of those relationships, I was supporting them as their legal resource, so they were giving me direction. And then it was kind of almost, it was the reverse when I was their supervisor. So sometimes it's just good to get it out on the table and just acknowledge, hey, I know this is kind of weird. But, you know, I appreciate our relationship. I want it to continue, be upfront, communicate, you know, make sure we're all on the same page going forward. And I think that that goes
a lot to making sure building a positive relationship going forward.
Jenn Quader (14:58)
Well, and that openness you talked about, you know, just being able to call out, hey, this could be a little strange. We're in different positions now. But also that family dynamic you discussed at Inland makes that very possible because you have a team that's already committed at the core level to the brand, to the mission. And so thereby, you know, how you are working intertwines. Now, you talked about the background of some of the people you've brought onto your leadership team that mirrors your own. And you came up through the law department, which is, I'd say,
non-traditional for a COO, probably very valuable though, I can only imagine. So I'm interested in how your legal background shaped the way you approach operational leadership.
How does that, how did that help shape your role? then could others see in that? If they think that maybe only a traditional mold applies, what could they take from your journey to inspire their journey?
Cassie Hrtanek (15:51)
So.
I think legal training trains you to be analytical, trains you to be cautious, trains you to really gather all the facts before a decision is made. So those three components, I think, help me in my current position because a lot of my job is making decisions. I'm constantly required to, OK, what's the decision
here, what are we going to do? I think my legal training
helps me really think through, see some of the legal risks that maybe others, you know, are not seeing related to some of those decisions. I do think that the training in and of itself and being a lawyer, it helps put you in a good mindset for being successful in an operations role. more importantly,
being in the department for 19 years and working with so many people across the organization, I was able to be part of so many of those teams. I always felt like I was part of the team.
I think that all of those traits and experiences really helped me. As far as a non-traditional way to get to a role, I think that it's a lot easier to kind of see a career in hindsight as opposed to when you're in the middle of it.
So I didn't really start thinking that one day I wanted to be COO. And just being in those experiences and trying to learn as much as I could in each of them, I think put me in a position where I felt confident enough.
to put myself out there for something different. I think that non-traditional experiences are fantastic. Bringing something different to the role is a value. I look for people who have...
a wide range of experience when I'm interviewing or when we're thinking about bringing somebody onto the team because I want them to complement my existing team. I don't need a clone of somebody who I already have. having those non-traditional routes I think is great. And I would encourage people not to shy away from putting themselves out there for something that they may not 100 %
qualify for. think especially women are a little bit reluctant to do that even though they may have some transferable skills. Having the confidence to take a little bit of risk and thinking, hey, I might not have all of the skills that this position is looking for, but I have the ability to learn and I have the initiative
I think that I can contribute. So I encourage people to not worry about so much having kind of the traditional path, but to have the confidence and be able to let folks know that they they can.
Jenn Quader (18:55)
It's a beautiful way of being because you are allowing them to see the path that they can take. Actually, I want to ask, sorry I'm interrupting my own thought here, but I want to ask because you said earlier, you said I wasn't thinking like I want to be COO. You went through this 20 years. What were you thinking? What was your carrot at the time?
Cassie Hrtanek (19:19)
You know, I started my career at a law firm in downtown Chicago. And it was great experience, but it was not the lifestyle that I wanted. And that was originally why I decided to come to Inland. So at the beginning, I was just looking to do really good work. I wanted to do work that was challenging.
But I also wanted to have some kind of, I mean, we called it balance at the time. Now, I'm not sure if it's balance, but I did hear someone say harmony once, and I kind of like that. I feel like there's, at Inland, we were able to harmonize our personal lives still doing really great, engaging work. And that was really what drew me to the position.
to begin with. So I really wasn't thinking about, my gosh, in 10 years what am I going to do? I was thinking more like, all right, this is great. I can harmonize family and the things that are important to me outside of the job with doing great work and my career. As I started to get further along in that, I started to move up the ranks of the law department. I enjoyed taking on leadership roles. I was excited about new and different projects.
And at some point I thought, ⁓ maybe I could be general counsel one day. One of our founders, Bob Baum, is our general counsel. I worked very closely with him and truly enjoyed being in the law department. it never occurred to me that I would not be in the law department until one of our main founder, Dan Goodwin, passed away unexpectedly.
And that, I know, I truly miss him every day. And that set off kind of an avalanche of change at Inland. And as this huge change was happening within the organization, I had this thought, well, maybe I could be part of the next generation of leadership at Inland. And I was like, oh, well.
what do I want to do about that? And so I had lunch with Tony Chereso who's our current CEO. And I said, what would you think about me taking a business role? And like, he's mouth dropped open. He's like, what? I was like, yeah, I mean, what would you think about that? I really had not like, didn't really have a specific role in mind. And he's like, that's really interesting. And so, you know, we finished lunch and, you know, he came back to me and he's like, you know, a few weeks later and was like,
chief operating officer and I said yes. I said yes like instantly. I didn't even think anything else. I'm like yes that is really exciting. ⁓ I am up for this challenge. So it was really about putting myself a little bit out of my comfort zone.
Jenn Quader (22:04)
Yes!
Cassie Hrtanek (22:23)
But I'm thinking that I'm ready for a challenge. And here we are.
Jenn Quader (22:31)
Well, and I'll add, and earning it over those 20 years, you because you're sitting across the table with someone who, when you asked, you had done the legwork such that it was there for you. And then I would like to say to all of our listeners, someone once said, ask and ye shall receive. You like you have to ask the question and you asked, you And so good on you, Cassie.
I'm inspired by you. I'm excited to learn more. I know we get to see you on the stage July 13th and 14th. You've talked a little bit about what matters in leadership today. I would like you to just share a few thoughts as to what do you think today's women in commercial real estate need to have top of mind and why should they attend GlobeSt Women of Influence?
Cassie Hrtanek (23:18)
honestly, it's putting yourself in situations or saying yes to the opportunities. Don't pass an opportunity by. Be your authentic self. Ask for what you want. Work hard. Obviously, work hard is a given. You know, if you don't work hard, you're not going to get there.
but also be true to yourself. Be authentic. I think that is so important.
So you're authentic with yourself, but then you're also authentic with the people that you work with. think that really truly builds real relationships. And true leaders are their authentic self and they inspire others. So are a few things to keep on mind. Honestly, I'm so excited to go back to this conference. It was literally the best conference I ever went to. I loved every second of it. Just the energy was amazing.
I
actually learned stuff. I met these amazing women who were doing such incredible things in this industry, made connections, increased my networking and my Rolodex and all of those important things that you need to do when you're trying to build your career.
but was also inspired by the younger generation coming up, by the awesome leadership that we have at this conference. And it was just a great experience all around. I have a colleague who is going to be honored. So I'm really excited to be there to support her. And just really looking forward to reconnecting with everybody who I met last year and having a great time.
Jenn Quader (24:58)
Cassie,
what a wonderful explanation of exactly what GlobeSt Women of Influence is because the energy is electric, but equally the business opportunity is so deep. In fact, I have heard it said many times, the most transactions come out of this conference because it's so intimate.
We are so excited to have you, Cassie. If people would like to continue to follow Inland, I'm sure they know, but how could they follow more or learn more about what you're doing as you make these moves and as you continue to really make a mark on the industry?
Cassie Hrtanek (25:31)
We are on all the socials, LinkedIn, X or Twitter or whatever it's called now. So yes, we're on all of the things. So just go to those and follow along.
Jenn Quader (25:44)
And I will echo Cassie, if you're not following Inland Real Estate, you must, you must, you must. These guys are truly landmark and iconic in the industry. They've done amazing things and keep them in the know. And in the meantime, we invite you to please register today to join us at GlobeSt Women of Influence. That is gonna be in Denver, July 13th and 14th. So there is a code that you'll see on your screen where you can save a little money and you can sign up today.
GlobeSt Women of Influence is the singular national networking, professional development, and team building event in commercial real estate. Companies from all over the world send representatives to this two-day event to gain deeper insights, make valuable connections, and cultivate new ideas that bring innovation, growth, and deal flow. Cassie, thank you for being here today. Friends, we will see you at GlobeSt Women of Influence.