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The Smart Agency presents GlobeSt Women of Influence.
Jenn Quader (00:09)
In commercial real estate, everyone talks about the deal. Far fewer talk about what happens after it closes. The years of operating the building, keeping tenants, controlling costs, and quietly turning a property into something that actually performs. That's the work that rarely makes headlines, but it's where value is won or lost. And today we have a guest who has built her career right there.
Katherine Pinkard built a property management company from the ground up, grew it to roughly two million square feet, and then did something that most founders never do. She sold it to MCB Real Estate and stepped in to lead property management across the firm's entire national portfolio.
She is now Senior Managing Director of Property Management at MCB, which is a privately held investment and development firm with about $4 billion in assets under management and roughly 22 million square feet owned, operated, and managed across more than 35 states. And that spans industrial, retail, multifamily, office, mixed use, and life science. So this is someone who really has a wide breadth.
Of understanding what is happening at the helm of property management. And she sits on the firm's AI and ESG committees. Katherine is a fourth-generation Pinkard in Maryland's commercial real estate sector. And she's a recognized leader in bringing AI and data analytics into those building operations. And she's living proof that the operational part of this business, the part that happens behind the scenes,
That's where great real estate is actually made. We cannot wait to hear from her. Welcome, Katherine Pinkard of MCB Real Estate.
Katherine Pinkard (01:45)
Thanks so much, Jenn my gosh, what an intro. I'm so proud and delighted to be here. Thank you.
Jenn Quader (01:51)
You should be proud. a woman in our industry who built a business, sold a business and now runs a four billion dollar portfolio from a management perspective. I'm gonna kick out the gate how does that feel today to hear that and to know that that's where you sit today?
Katherine Pinkard (02:07)
It's so exciting. First of all, all of that would not be possible without my wonderful team. So I'm proud of my leadership and what I helped build, but none of that would have been possible without a team. And it's it's great. It's been such a journey and adventure. I love being here at MCB and I'm excited to get into that a little bit more today.
Jenn Quader (02:26)
Spoken like a true leader, Katherine, truly. And we are excited. I will let everyone know that we're gonna be hearing from Katherine as a speaker at the GlobeSt Women of Influence conference that's in Denver on July 13th and 14th. It's coming up soon. Get your tickets now. Katherine, we know that MCB has been
On a remarkable growth. I mean, you guys have added more than 1.3 billion in acquisitions since 2023. we saw a deal with Epic Real Estate Partners where you added 15 grocery anchored centers, a national grocery anchored portfolio that you acquired just this year with CBRE Investment Management. And so all of this activity is happening, you're bringing in all this new stuff, and it's your team that gets every one of these assets to manage. So when you're getting all this new retail and mixed-use product and it's all coming in.
What does it take to operate that well from day one? What does the day-to-day look like? And then where's the untapped value that you, Katherine at MCB are tapping into that maybe other operators aren't finding?
Katherine Pinkard (03:25)
No pressure, right? Everything that you just listed. we do. MCB has been growing rapidly and there's more in the pipeline to come. And I am here for it. But as you touched on, closing the deal is just the very beginning, right? That's not the end of the process. And that's when my team's work starts. So the underwriting and all those Argus models can be as great
As possible, but the proof is in the pudding when my team steps in to start operating these assets, right? So the plan can be great, but if we trip and fall on the operating side, that's going to impact that investment. And we take that very seriously. So the start of that is onboarding a new asset, right? And we, our acquisitions team is wonderful. They they trust us, they bring us in early to understand the current state, who's managing it currently.
And then what the plan is, Like where are we taking this? What do you need from our team? We're chameleons a little bit, The asset management team tells us what what what is the asset strategy here? How long are we holding it? What what do you want us to help do? And then it's on us to go help deploy that strategy and to stay in communication with the team to make sure that as that strategy evolves, the market conditions change.
Tenants change that we are still executing on the strategy that we were tasked with from the beginning. So really important, I think, that sometimes folks miss out on is our strategy is never to march in with heavy boots and we're gonna fire all these vendors because we have our own vendor network or like we know how to do things. Onboarding these new properties at the pace that MCB has been acquiring new things gives us an opportunity to learn, right? So our team will sit.
And understand and read leases and read vendor contracts and meet with the tenants and understand what makes the property tick. So that then we can determine like, well, what are we better at that we think we can really drive value here? And what can we learn? Okay. Did we meet a new vendor that could help us maybe somewhere else? But my team always is following the kind of directive to stop and listen and learn, then let's go execute and do what we do best. So
On your question of where might operators kind of capture that untapped value after the deal closes, I think that's when we work in very close collaboration again with the asset management team and our leasing team. We have a great in-house leasing team and making sure that we're helping them with, you know, if there was some vacancy that we're trying to fill or we're trying to renew a tenant that's kind of key to the investment strategy of this asset. What can our team help do to support that?
that's the revenue side. On the expense side, how can our team help drive NOI? You know, if it's an office property, medical office, if if it's some sort of asset where the landlord is responsible for utilities, we'll look at that first, right? That's a huge operating expense category. can we adjust the programming if there's an automation system? Can we bid out an energy contract if the market is one where we can do that?
We're really paying attention to in the weeds of these expenses. again, touching on vendor contracts, right? Do we have the right vendors there? Do we have the partners that are our boots on the ground that are helping our tenants and kind of driving value at this asset from an ongoing vendor standpoint? And then, of course, none of us would be in this business at all if it weren't for our tenants. So we take our customer service and our tenant relationships very, very seriously because again,
the strategy of keeping a tenant, keeping them happy, making sure we're all adhering to lease terms, that's really important. And and having a good relationship with our tenants helps us too, right? We may have just been at that grocery anchored center the day before and the very next morning something happens. If we have a great relationship, sometimes that tenant is our eyes on the ground before we even get there the next day to handle something that pops up. So
What is behind all of that is a high-powered property management team with attention to detail and critical thinking. that's really what the basis of what I look for in building a team is, is you are the CEO of your property, right? It is yours. You are empowered to run this and to think critically and how can we really help this asset perform? Everyone should understand what drives NOI and how our team impacts that.
Jenn Quader (07:51)
Fascinating and you've hit on so many important things. One of which I'll bring us back to quickly is relationships. When you talk about not only the people you're hiring, which you as you said, you build a team that has a strong attention to detail and critical thinking skills, but then you went back and talked about the the importance of relationships with tenants and even with the vendors you're selecting. and I find that fascinating because of course our industry talks about that from the deal making to the property operation, it's all about these relationships. And you talked a little bit all the way back in onboarding.
About how you don't come in with heavy boots. You come in looking at everything and making it move. And it made me think of I was recently at a ULI meeting and there was someone talking about change. And they talked about the difference between technical change and adaptive change. And so technical change is like, hey, we're gonna change this from green to blue. What are the steps we need to use to go to blue? And then adaptive change is like, hey, we're gonna change this from green to blue. Let's talk about what blue means.
How do we get to blue? Is blue the right way? my follow-up question, Katherine, how long do you sit in adaptive change, looking at feeling what's there, understanding the networks and the relationships that are there versus pushing into that technical change that obviously you must get
What's the balance between those two?
Katherine Pinkard (09:06)
Well, you're exactly right. And that is such a fascinating kind of nuanced difference. I love that. I'm gonna take that and run with it. But you're not gonna like my answer, which it depends, right? it depends on the geography. There are some markets where the energy market is such that there is no supplier choice, right? We can't bid it out. so it
it really just does depend. And that's where everything really is customized to the property. Obviously we have internal policy and procedure and standards that we follow, but we really have to get in and understand the asset.
Jenn Quader (09:41)
Makes a lot of sense. Again, I'll just clue in that learning remains a heavy theme. And then also it it again explains why you are focused on a team that has that attention to detail and critical thinking because you're constantly navigating a moving ship, you know? and that's been part of the legacy of your career, Katherine, is that you built that team. you co-founded Pinkard Properties back in 2012 with your father.
And then you built that up yourself to a two million square foot operation, and you guys were already known for high touch for institutional quality service. And then it was just 2025, so pretty recent that you finished and achieved the sale of that company to MCB, and you yourself negotiated the deal. You integrated a 14-person team, You kept your clients and your systems kind of moving into a larger platform.
You're pretty amazing, Katherine, really, and at how you were able to move all of these So what I want to ask you is what what does that take? Like what does it take to fold something that is so personal and local and and also institutional? And then roll that into a national platform without losing responsiveness, while keeping that high touch.
What is what does that look like trying to navigate that?
Katherine Pinkard (10:52)
Yeah, I mean, it's not easy. I will say that. but I think that's any merger. I think anyone who's been through a merger acquisition will tell you that. Anytime you're changing accounting systems or forms and process, like that just part of it's annoying and you just kind of have to get through it. But I think in property management, it's a very commoditized business, right? I provide a service that lots of other companies provide.
On the surface, it there appears to not be a lot of differentiation. You manage the property, you administer the leases, you hire vendors. so when we founded Pinkard Properties, it was the why us, right? What differentiates us? Why would you hire us versus anyone else in the market that you could hire? And we found that there was a gap between the large institutional players, you know, CBRE, JLL, Cushman and Wakefield, and then a local partner who was
very local and maybe didn't have institutional quality kind of finance and accounting or legal processes. And so we thought, huh, you know, being based in Baltimore in Maryland, there are a lot of assets that are of institutional quality but still locally owned, or with an owner that appreciates kind of a local presence. So we set out to be that first class institutional quality
But local, you know, you could call and the property manager knows the property accountant who can call me, we would just be nimble and could get things done. and it worked really well for us. I mean, we hit a hockey stick of growth during the pandemic and post pandemic because we were nimble. We could very quickly adapt to rapidly changing conditions in the commercial real estate market from a property management standpoint. So
It served us well. I think the culture piece of it is hard because we were so small from a kind of human capital standpoint that coming to MCB, the property management team that I lead now here at MCB is about 80 people. And, you know, we have separate divisions, property accounting, lease administration, the property management team, our operations and building engineering team. We have a vendor contracts team. So
It's very different. So I think preserving that culture of my team being independent, self-starters, go-getters, being able to do things, was important to maintain at MCB, but in a scalable way. You know, how can you do that? That it still works with 80 people, you keep the good parts of that, but that I know that I'm confident I can deploy when we have a hundred and sixty people, three hundred people, and it's scalable.
And I think it was being clear to the team what had to change. We have to use one accounting system, you know, we have to get on one policy and procedure around all the things we do. But what we didn't want to change, right? Which was this kind of culture and level of responsibility and responsiveness and kind of folding that into the great team that existed here at MCB.
And the kind of last piece is I
wouldn't have a business at all if it wasn't for our clients. Jenn, I'm so excited to share this. So here I sit about a year and a half later, and every client that came over with us at the merger is still here with us at MCB, aside from some natural attrition when things get sold or whatever. so I'm so proud. That's that just that speaks of my team.
Jenn Quader (14:11)
Wow.
Katherine Pinkard (14:15)
Right. it has not been easy. You know, there's definitely moments where it's like, my gosh, this report looks different to the client because it used to be in another format. And it's a lot of extra work for my team on top of the work they're already doing on a day-to-day basis. So I'm so proud of that statistic. And it just shows what a first class operation MCB property management is.
Jenn Quader (14:35)
really deserves a standing ovation because anybody who's ever gone through a property crossover can say, wow, To be able to hold that type of business to the consistency and to be able to keep the assets performing, especially during what has been not an easy time. You know, these past few years have been a little little tough on the commercial real estate side, you know. So you you talked about being nimble and how that really helped.
the team that you then folded into this larger team, now you've scaled up to a a larger team of 80. But within that the ethos of kind of what you do is being nimble and being high touch and being institutional. And you mentioned in that being nimble that it's adapting to change really fast. And one of the places that everybody is doing that right now is AI and data.
And how is that affecting building operations? And this is a place where you are a champion. You're on the committee for AI for MCB. so
Can you tell us today as we sit, you know, heading into July of twenty twenty six to this Women of Influence conference, where is AI and data actually making a difference for you guys where it comes to property management?
Katherine Pinkard (15:46)
Yeah. my gosh. I love this question because I am such a nerd for technology and love AI. part of I think
what has made me so bullish on it and we can happily discuss specific examples. But I've been playing around with it myself. So you know, I bought a Mac mini and I'm trying to build agentic AI models in my basement to try to play around with how can we do this. So I would encourage people, I think people get intimidated, but it's really easy to play around with it and to start somewhere, even if you just open a window with Claude or Chat GPT or Copilot or whatever it is that you use and just
Ask the AI, like I want to get started. How can I do this? So this week alone I've demoed two AI platforms that could help, you know, at MCB with a lot of its data, right? Like we just have so much data here. So I think it's just constantly knowing what's out there in the some of them I don't think are I've demoed one that came across as a little bit of a
glorified spreadsheet married with Claude, right? I want I want to think bigger than this and put lots of different systems together. so I think it's just staying on top of what's out there. And then I think the biggest opportunity in property management is all of the data that we produce.
We sit on a vast amount of data.
But it's often very siloed, right? The leases are PDFs that live in SharePoint. so are the vendor contracts that are in a separate area of of SharePoint. all of our financial data lives in MRI. our work order system with the work order reporting is another system over here. And if we can take all of that disparate data and connect it, I just think that will exponentially.
provide so much value to the property management industry around kind of decision making and efficiency. I like that we are in the business of managing physical assets and there is no world in which AI is fixing my leaking expansion tank that's flooding a bank lobby, right? So it's how do we redeploy the human capital in a different way and use technology to just make us more
Jenn Quader (17:54)
I think you've encapsulated it beautifully to say like it's not one it's not one baby small tool that's gonna help us. It it is looking at the entire how do you get the disparate pieces to talk to each other in a way that informs us? And then as you were speaking, I couldn't help but think, you know, when when you watch like the like Star Trek, you know, like the futuristic stuff, I was thinking to myself, you know, they don't have self-flying spaceships. They just have better dashboards, they have better machines, better information. And so that's what you're saying, is you're essentially
if you can use it to to correctly and safely, I should say, connect those lease PDFs with the vendor contracts, with the financial data, then in you can shrink down the time in which it it takes to make those decisions, and then you can proactively address problems that could have become expensive. So it it brings massive like real dollar value to the owner of any property. you make a great case for it, Katherine.
So as we as we close and we get ready and we look ahead to July, I do wanna bring it back to your leadership and your own personal perspective. You are carrying a family name into its fourth generation in the industry, you're well known in your region.
And you built a company, you sold it, and now you run a national division. you've done all of this in a place and it's not lost on all of us that women continue to be relatively underrepresented at the level that you've as you're taking the stage and you know there's gonna be an audience at GlobeSt Women of Influence, that is everyone from C-suite executives that we all work alongside to those people who are
growing in their career and looking for more, what would you say to the women in that room, what do they need to carry forward when it comes to looking at your career and leadership and working in a behind the scenes and yet very important role like operations management?
Katherine Pinkard (19:39)
Yeah, thank you. Wow, that's heavy. I think the onus is on women at a leadership level, right? If you are the president, the CEO, the managing partner, I think the onus is on you to be that example for other women. Cause I think that's really hard, right? If younger women in their careers are looking up and don't see a path forward, like, gosh, I don't see any women in leadership roles and this track that I want to pursue.
That's hard, right? I'm lucky to be surrounded by wonderful women. Baker Chambers, our president, is a wonderful leader, an example of that. And I think that's important. So I would I would put the pressure on women in leadership positions to be that woman for the next generation. And then the other side of that coin is the the self-advocacy, right?
maybe demanding is too strong a word, but advocating for a seat at the table, believing in yourself and what you bring to your company, to this investment, to, you know, whatever your role might be.
and then part of like I'm so, so excited to be at this conference in Denver in July is a network of women.
Right to tap into. I think that's huge. And that the peer mentoring piece of that, I think a lot of times people think a mentor needs to be someone that's older than you or more successful or a different level. But I'm huge on peer mentoring that I you can learn from anyone in a room, right? Whether they're in a more junior role than you, a peer in a more significant role than you, but the opportunity to connect with other women and and maintain that network of support, I think is huge.
Jenn Quader (21:12)
Massive and and so well said, Katherine, because you're right. It is about peer mentoring. It is about cross-training our own skills. Those who've been in the industry a long time have great deep perspective, but those who are new have a whole different perspective and have touched other technologies and things. So what a beautiful way to to invite all of our listeners, everyone who is listening, you will hear Katherine Pinkard speak at GlobeSt Women of Influence. I I will remind you all that that is taking place in Denver on July 13th and 14th.
Katherine, I wanna thank you and I do wanna ask our listeners if they would like to follow MCB and stay on top of everything that's happening, where can they find you or where can they follow? What should what should they be aware of?
Katherine Pinkard (21:53)
my gosh, shout out to our incredible marketing team who does a wonderful job. Please follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn. You can constantly see what we're doing. Our website's pretty cool, but the LinkedIn content that they produced around ICSC in Las Vegas just recently was incredible. So my gosh, yes, go follow us to keep up with what we're doing. wonderful.
Jenn Quader (22:15)
Fabulous. So tune in on LinkedIn and then of course come in person with us to Denver July 13th and 14th. To everyone out there listening, get your tickets today. We do have a discount code you can use for savings. 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. We'll see you there.