Leadership & Experience Team
Space Planning & Program Management Team
Nida Mehtab
Nida brings her passion for real estate and globally diverse experience to help companies assess and analyze their portfolios and solve problems at hand. Her experience in project and program management, coupled with her academic background in architecture and commercial real estate development has given her a unique understanding of real estate portfolios from Strategic to detailed construction level and bring out-of-the-box solutions to the table.
She has been a part of Barclays business roll out in emerging markets, Standards Chartered bank rebranding and real estate capacity planning, as well successfully managing multisite and multi million dollars programs for financial and utility giants like J.P. Morgan Chase and Pacific Gas and Electric. Her understanding of financials and data has allowed her to help clients develop long term real estate strategies, portfolio plans and execution strategies and developing business cases. Her ability to drive results and critical thinking has helped deliver large commercial office space projects with very aggressive deadlines for tech giant clients like Facebook. She possesses uncanny abilities to analyze workplace and real estate data to identify gaps and opportunities for companies helping them meet their targets and roll out new initiatives.
Nida has served as a trusted board member for Women Leaders in Commercial Real Estate for Goldie B. Wolfe Miller Foundation. She has been recognized a woman of the year by Barclays and has presented paper on South Asian Architectural Platform.
She has delivered projects varying between 50,000 square feet and 500,000 square feet and provided project management and portfolio planning leadership for multi-million square foot programs with construction values of over $1B.
Lisa Whited
Lisa Whited has 39 years’ experience creating optimal workplaces for high performing teams. She is driven to make a dent in climate change and improve people’s engagement with work. Lisa believes that connection to purpose is paramount, and she encourages generative thinking at the leadership level to clarify what is essential. These facilitated, inclusive conversations can lead to decisions that shape policy, grow programs, develop people, influence workspace architecture and interior design, and positively impact the planet. Lisa includes all voices in a change process. She has consulted with organizations small and large, local and global, across virtually all industries.
Change Management: Recent engagements include Google, Willis Towers Watson, Aroma Joe’s, Microsoft, Bernstein Shur, Evergy, and Amnesty International.
Global Agile Program Development: Provided strategic consulting services to Omnicom, developing a Global Agile Workplace Program for 1200 agencies and 70,000 employees.
Organizational Development Consulting: Led and facilitated strategic planning retreats and provided board member training for 79 chapters of the USGBC, creator of the LEED program and credential.
Hybrid Workplace Strategy: Consulted with organizations’ leaders to clarify their priorities, engage with managers, and support policy development and change management processes as they transitioned to a higher percentage of remote and hybrid workers post-COVID.
Workplace Design: Provided programming and interior architecture services to organizations ranging from 10 employees to more than 1,500 employees using a tightly facilitated inclusive process that engages all employees in reimagining their workplace. Recent clients include Clark Insurance, Patrons Oxford, Tilson Technology, Maine Today Media, Kepware, United Way, and Camden National Bank.
Publications + Presentations: Author of 50+ articles for trade publications; author of Work Better. Save the Planet, a sustainable plan for building employee engagement through workplace change; contributing author to Sustainability + Planetary Health chapter for Work On The Move 3. Recent presentations include: Circular Economy – Our Time + Responsibility to Act; The Future of the Workplace in a Post-Pandemic World; Is Hybrid Work Sustainable?; Build Community + Drive Innovation with Remote Work; How Will Your Work Change-Post Covid-19?; Rethinking Workplaces to Build Community; Taking On Climate Change: You Can Make A Difference.
Lisa has an M.S. in Organization + Management from Antioch University and holds certifications in mediation, facilitation, and interior design. She has been recognized for her leadership and received the 2017 CIDQ Louis S. Tregre Award and the 2002 IIDA Leadership Award, among others.
Lisa volunteers with IFMA’s Workplace Evolutionaries, the Olympia Snowe Women’s Leadership Institute, her local Conscious Capitalism chapter, Pecha Kucha, DisruptHR, and Portland Empowered, a group that educates immigrant parents about the public school system so they are in a position of power when advocating for their own children’s education.
Steve Hargis
Steve is a globally-recognized professional with research and design projects focused on getting the most out of both people and physical resources, ensuring the two are indelibly linked together. Steve wears the client’s hat, and his stakeholder engagement skills are a key contributor to success. He tailors process and outcomes to organization’s unique business needs.
This experience includes significant development and deployment of workplace strategies for global corporations. Previous global clients include Amazon, VMware, HP Inc., Shell, Microsoft, Google, Eli Lilly, and Zurich Insurance. Steve currently leads AWA’s engagement with Twitter.
His real estate and workplace consulting career spans disciplines (architecture, interiors, consulting, program management, relationship management) and geographies (Houston, New York City, Mexico City, San Francisco).
Celeste Tell
Celeste Tell focuses on the intersection of agile workplace strategies and the Circular Economy. An interdisciplinary designer, strategist, systems thinker and change agent, she is passionate about developing and implementing integrated strategies to reduce the burden of the workplace environment on the planet by changing the ways we work. Celeste has held leadership roles as both end-user/occupier and consultant on large, technically, and organizationally complex capital projects for clients in the public, private and non-profit sectors including Alaska Airlines and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Celeste has a Master of Design (MDes) in Strategy & Planning from the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology and a BA, Interior Design from Michigan State University. She is an alumnus of Leadership Tomorrow Seattle, was advisory board chair for the Bachelor of Technology in Applied Design (BTAD) at Lake Washington Institute of Technology (LWTECH) where she also taught. Celeste currently serves on the Fort Worden Public Development Authority in Port Townsend, WA, where she lives with her husband and Labradoodle, Lucy.
Sofia Fonseca de Nino
Sofia Fonseca de Nino is a Real Estate and Design Advisor.
She has been embedded in teams within Spotify, HP and Marathon Oil to assist their Real Estate and HR leaders in driving organizational transformation. She has worked closely with the Workplace Strategy teams at LinkedIn, Chevron, and British Petroleum. She has certifications from MIT Sloane School of Management on Artificial Intelligence for Business Strategy and from PROSCI Change Management.
With over 20 years of experience working virtually, she has assisted clients globally to activate their corporate mission/DNA essence into a narrative that stimulates cultural principles in their companies. She specializes in facilitation, programming, people engagement and workplace strategies.
Her research has placed an emphasis on the importance of neuroscience and emotional intelligence in design. She received a Master’s Degree in Architecture with a focus on Management and Real Estate from Harvard University and a Bachelor in Environmental Science from the Gerald D. Hines University of Houston College of Architecture and Design where she is currently part of the Graduate Faculty teaching Methods of Research and Thesis.
She presents in international conventions and delights in connecting personal purpose to company mission. She speaks Spanish fluently.
Ken Buck
Ken is a corporate real estate, workplace strategy, facilities, design and construction executive with 20+ years’ experience managing and advising Fortune 500 corporate real estate and facilities organizations. He provides extensive expertise leading real estate organizational strategy and transformations, portfolio planning, capital planning and project management, design, construction and asset management of global operations. Ken has led business units and advised organizations such as IBM, Facebook, Kaiser Permanente, Pfizer, Amgen, Verizon, AT&T and PG&E. He has an MBA from Temple University, and architecture and engineering degrees from Drexel University.
Ankita Gupta
Ankita is a motivated team player focusing on project cost controls, schedule optimization, and development of tools and techniques needed in effectively manage real estate construction projects. She is adept in Business intelligence using advanced data analysis. Ankita strives to make project management leaner, focusing on continuous process improvement, and increasing efficiencies.
Her areas of expertise are:
Space programming, supporting the overall engagement with the end users and workstreams, developing organizational tools, develop space standards and test fits. Understanding customer real estate vision and align with actual space plans. Business Intelligence and data analytics for portfolio optimization. Mapping inter-departmental adjacencies that have been established from the survey responses, meetings with the steering committees and special functional leads.
Space programming with an iterative process that evolved according to the client's requirements, considering the workgroup function the building codes and regulations, lighting, teaming requirements, inter-communication, and storage to make the best use of available space.
Camilo Pascua
Camilo Pascua is a Space Programming and Planning Professional. He has been embedded in teams within Thermo Fisher, Lam Research and Genentech to assist their Corporate Facilities leaders in driving organizational transformation. He has worked closely with the Engineering and Facilities teams at Lam Research, eSilicon and Farasis Energy. He has certifications from California State University, Hayward for Facilities Management.With over 20 years of experience, he has helped clients transform their ideas into built environments that address the various needs of their fast paced business. He specializes in space programming, planning and facilities management.
He received a Master’s of Business Administration in International Business from California State University, Hayward and a Bachelor in Architecture and Environmental Design from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
Marie MacInnis
Marie MacInnis has been working in the design and building industry for over 8 years across Canada and the United States in a variety of roles. Her experience includes multidisciplinary engineering project management to architectural design with a focus on workplace strategy and design. She has worked on projects including large government campus design and planning, technology campus strategic planning and design along with technology workplace interior architecture.
Richard J. Palomba
Dick has extensive experience and management responsibilities working as an entrepreneur, co-founder of an international real estate services company, and thought leader for numerous emerging and established high tech companies, and as principal of a strategic planning and management consulting firm. He brings an extensive background in organizational development, administrative services, facilities and project management, strategic systems and financial planning, international real estate, design and construction, and contract negotiations.
His earlier work experience included six and a half years of administrative experience in higher education at the University of San Francisco and The University of Massachusetts at Amherst in student services and financial administration. As managing partner of his own consulting firm and co-founder of an international real estate services company, Dick has provided leadership and effective solutions for a wide variety of corporate clients including financial services institutions, technology firms, manufacturing, and services companies. The ROI for most client engagements far exceeds 20:1.
In addition, Dick has served as a board member and senior advisor to two startup companies. He is an active member of the industry professional association - CoreNet Global - and has served on the Executive Committee, Co-Chair of Educational Programs Committee and Co-Chair of the Annual Awards Recognition Committee for the Northern California CoreNet Chapter.
Dick did his doctoral work in Leadership in Administration at the University of San Francisco and received a M Ed in Educational Leadership and Administration and a BA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He holds the CFM designation from IFMA, is a member of CoreNet, a candidate for the SLCR designation, and a member of IAOP. He has taught at three universities and presented at numerous professional conferences on subjects including business process design, leadership, outsourcing and corporate real estate management.
Anuj Dalal
Anuj Dalal is a 20 year real estate, design, and construction expert with a specific focus on Project & Program Management; Technology Deployment, Knowledge & Change Management, Workplace Strategy; Procurement; Sustainability; Business Intelligence; and Racial Equity & Justice Initiatives.
Most recently Anuj spent 6+ years in Apple’s Retail Real Estate, Design, Development, and Merchandising team, where he led all Pre-construction efforts for Apple WW retail portfolio This work estimating, scheduling, processes & tools, engineering & technology infrastructure, and special initiatives. Anuj was instrumental is creating the business processes and rollout strategy that enabled Apple to construct their Flagship Store program. This worked included implementing several portfolio wide technology applications such as PMWeb, InEight, Tableau, and monday.com. He also developed a racial equity and justice mapping tool to aggregate Apple efforts in Retail Stores, Community Initiatives, and Education with the aim to reassess the way we identify future opportunities.
In addition to this work, Anuj was Co-Chair of Apple’s SouthAsian@Apple resource group. In this capacity he was responsible for setting our business strategy across business impact, community outreach, cultural engagement, and volunteering efforts. Anuj’s client roster from his 12 year consulting career at JLL and Cushman & Wakefield includes Bank of America, Union Bank, Proctor & Gamble, Broadcom, Salesforce, Workday, Pacific Gas & Electric, First American Title, Nvidia, Symantec, and BMC. He held several senior level roles with global reach such as Project Platform Lead, PMO Lead, and Regional Projects Lead.
Anuj has struck by Kenneth Blanchard’s quote - “The key to successful leadership is influence, not authority." That to him embodies how should operate and the way he endeavors to lead. Over the course of his professional career, he’s always had “day job” responsibilities and “value driven” initiatives. And marrying these gives focus on his ultimate deserve to help others beyond their professional goals.
Anuj received a master’s degree in engineering & project management from UC Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree in civil & environmental engineering from UCLA. He is a LEED AP and Civil Engineering PE; and also hold a Management of Technology certification. Anuj lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his spouse Shefali and son Raghav. Together they enjoy traveling, hiking, and playing sports.
Janet Goodman
Janet is a Program Development leader with more than 25 years experience in project,program and portfolio management from every side of the table; as an architectural design practitioner, a construction manager, a design/builder and as the corporate(internal) principal owner’s representative. These multiple perspectives are the foundation for leading teams, building consensus with stakeholders and moving projects from vision to reality.
Janet’s experiences cover the full spectrum of real estate asset management services for institutional, government and corporate clients. Assignments include strategic portfolio planning for a 14-site, 2.4M square foot office optimization program, development of construction management program for a global multi-site corporate client, Design/Build delivery lead for 170,000 square foot headquarters building and Pre-Construction lead for three United States Courthouses. She has directed all phases of project delivery from site development through design, construction and occupancy.
Janet is a skilled communicator. She has facilitated partnering, delivered in-house training, co-authored white papers on best practices for project delivery, chaired a national CMAA conference panel, “Preconstruction, its not just estimating” and served as a juror for a National Association of Women in Construction Design Competition.
She believes that meeting the scope, budget and schedule is only a baseline threshold for project success. High performance teams achieve excellent projects. Her proudest accomplishments have been participating in great teams where the synergy of technical expertise, measurable targets, partnership culture and “can do” attitudes resulted in excellent projects. She has managed contracts, construction and projects totaling over $1B in the course of her career.
Armando S. Rodriguez
Armando has over 20-years of deep and progressive experience as a result- achieving change agent and innovator in corporate workplace and real estate strategy and planning, project and change management, client relationship management, real estate transactions, facility/asset management and business operations.
He has expertise in leading cross-functional teams to align business and people strategy (demand) with workplace and real estate strategy (supply) and is a highly organized leader and collaborator that inspires teams to succeed.
He most recently led innovative development of Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s real estate strategy companywide for its 8 million square feet of office, critical operations, warehouse, shop, and technical spaces. Strategies included the consolidation of PG&E's San Francisco HQ and two East Bay locations to Oakland (a 900k square foot reduction) - currently being executed – and regional office consolidations.
His earlier work includes experience in heavy construction at numerous hydroelectric, geothermal, and fossil fuel power plants, where he led startup and mechanical installation activities. He also supervised engineering and construction teams, and project managed multi-million-dollar tenant improvement, seismic, architectural, and telecommunication projects. After eventually migrating into corporate real estate, Armando gained deep experience in property management, leasing and negotiating complex real estate transactions, real estate program management, and client relationship management. He eventually advanced to his most recent positions leading workplace and real estate portfolio strategy.
Armando earned his degree at Purdue University in construction management, minoring in Civil Engineering. He has since earned several real estate certifications (SLCR, MCR, CCIM, RPA) - keeping abreast of industry best practices - and is keenly focused on being a decisive, genuine, servant leader that provides meaningful value.
Gina Caruso
Ms. Caruso has 30 plus years in project construction management and has managed and implemented numerous construction and relocation programs. This has included coordination of Architects, General Contractors and sub-contractors, audio visual consultants, furniture vendors
and building security.
Ms. Caruso skillset ranges from construction management to post-move asset disposal, lease administration and space management. Her passionate commitment to outstanding customer service has remained a core focus of the company.
Ms. Caruso has received several East Bay Business Times awards including Fastest Growing Private Companies, Women in Leadership, and Largest Woman-Owned Businesses in the Bay Area. Ms. Caruso has a degree in Psychology and Education from Loyola-Marymount University and is a member of the Northern California chapter of CORENET and the International Facility Management Association (IFMA).
Renee Ralston
Ms. Ralston, since 1996 and has had primary project management responsibilities for strategic long-range planning, lease negotiations, design development, space planning services, construction management, project management and move and vendor coordination. She is responsible for management of the project management team and of all operational processes. In addition, Ms. Ralston leads the PG&E account team that has provided relocation management for multiple successful projects completed in Northern California since 2004.
Ms. Ralston has a degree in Business Administration and Management and has been a board member for the East Bay Chapter of the International Facility Management Association (IFMA). She is an active member of the Soroptimist of San Ramon Valley.
Suzanne Dabby
Ms. Dabby, with over 16 years’ experience in multiple aspects of interior design, design management, and corporate services. Prior to joining, Ms. Dabby was a Project Manager at the Corporate Real Estate Facilities Office of Merrill Lynch in Irvine, California. At Merrill Lynch, Ms. Dabby’s area of responsibility was management of architectural design for all branch offices in the western states. This included
overseeing and providing space planning, furniture specifications, and review of construction documentation. Ms. Dabby is responsible for project management and AutoCAD design services. Design services include pre-planning; test fits; space planning; space field validations and verifications, including furniture layouts for relocation, and move plans for relocations, restacks and phased moves. She has provided space allocation analyses in pre-planning, inventory for client’s existing furniture for use in relocation or liquidation.
Ms. Dabby provides space planning and CAD support for all PG&E projects, including the ongoing multiphase General Office projects in downtown San Francisco. She is responsible for coordinating and scheduling over 3,000 employees returning to the work to pack and prepare for later relocation, according to Covid-19 protocols and social distancing. Recently, Ms. Dabby also provided space planning for packing and storing contents for over 1,000 employees according to Covid-19 protocols and social distancing for State Compensation Insurance Fund in Pleasanton and Vacaville, CA.
Ms. Dabby has a degree for Arts in Interior Design from the American InterContinental University in London (formerly known as the American College in London).
Phyllis Ewers
Ms. Ewers is an Occupancy Planner/Project Manager supporting Kaiser Permanente, Oakland hospital and medical buildings. During this time, she was responsible for the planning and relocation of employees and furniture. Her responsibilities became very crucial during COVID-19 surges in 2020. Changes were made swiftly, efficiently and out-side-the box to support the hospital staff operating in crisis mode. She had previously managed and provided interior design services to support San Francisco Bay Area facilities.
Ms. Ewers is currently assisting with the packing project at PG&E San Francisco headquarters.
Ms. Ewers has a degree in Fine Arts-Interior Design from Drake University, Des Moines, IA.
Diane Crowe
Ms. Crowe, with her over 20 years of experience in construction and relocation management of corporate and public sector projects. Her role has been the primary contact to management in defining the details of the project scope and managing the implementation. As an experienced project manager, Ms. Crowe possesses excellent project planning skills and has a proven track record in executing projects within budget and schedule.
Ms. Crowe manages tenant improvement construction and relocation projects. Her areas of responsibility include program review to understand clients’ needs and requirements; development of budgets and project schedules; evaluation of drawings and specifications to ensure an optimal project plan; verification of construction documents to confirm accuracy and proper coordination between client, architect and general contractor; management of technology and owner sub consultants to ensure scope is integrated with overall design; coordination and facilitation of project team meetings; development and administration of the relocation plan; and completion of the punch list and close out tasks. Her experience includes Ubiquiti Networks, Tensilica, Myoscience, Financial Engines, Hill Physicians Group, Life Technologies, Architectural Glass & Aluminum, Pericom Semiconductor, Teachscape, Natixis, Ravenswood Family Health Center, ASML, Elixir Medical Corp, New Schools Venture Fund and several projects for PG&E, including the Auburn Service Center, Merced Service Center and Placerville Service Center. Most recently, Ms. Crowe has been coordinating special relocation projects at PG&E’s San Francisco headquarters.
Ms. Crowe has a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Chico State University.
Jennifer Haas
Ms. Haas, with over 18 years’ experience in the facilities management and project management industry.
Ms. Haas has also worked as Facilities Project Lead at First Franklin Financial where she held several positions. Her responsibilities included space planning, project budget reviews, tracking regional growth and expansion needs, and managing high-level timelines. She oversaw the expansion of multiple field offices and their eventual closure and liquidations following the mortgage industry decline of the late 2000’s.
Her work has also involved diverse clients such as Safeway, AAA Club regional offices, Sugar CRM, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Matteson Companies and ATPA. Most recently, Ms. Haas successfully coordinated the move of 600 people for ATMEL, where she organized and executed the move plan in three weeks. She has also participated in relocation projects for Zynga, State Fund Compensation, and PG&E Moss Landing and Edenvale Service Centers. Most recently, Ms. Haas has coordinated a PG&E relocation project in Fresno and the decommissioning of a bioscience company facility in the Bay Area.
Jennifer Harris
Jennifer, with more than 15 years of project management and professional services experience. She has supervised projects spanning healthcare to technology and workplace management with a diverse background and understanding of unique projects.
While leading the State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF) Pleasanton reshuffle, Jennifer coordinated with Property Managers, construction teams, facilities, engineers, and program managers for the reconstruction of four floors. At the rise of Covid-19, Jennifer and the team established a detailed transition plan allowing employees to work offsite. This included developing Covid-19 guidelines, signage, and directions for packing their items so that the construction schedule would not be impacted. This move also included the systematic documentation of multiple large file rooms and transition of approximately 1000 workspaces.
Jennifer has a BA from Pace University in New York, an MA from George Washington University in Washington, DC, and extensive Project Management Professional (PMP) coursework and training.
Christian Kim
Mr. Kim provides move management, post-move management services, and coordination of 8 server rooms and 2 computer labs. It was a 680 person restack between multiple locations for Pure Storage’s Corporate Headquarters in Mountain View, CA. The restack involved pre-move planning and coordination, technology coordination, mover and vendor services, employee activity coordination, onsite move coordination and post-move activity.
Recently Mr. Kim assisted with project move management and post-move management services for PG&E, including a project relocating over 400 employees from roughly 30 various locations throughout California.
Mr. Kim has a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Saint Mary’s College of California.
Lilith Hom
Ms. Hom brings 15 years of experience in the fields of Information Technology, Architecture and Commercial Furniture. She has also held the role of a Project Coordinator for Resource Design Interiors (RDI-SF) in San Francisco, CA where creativity and ideas in an open collaborative environment met the fast paced, competitive world of commercial design and furnishings.
Ms. Hom has managed a several facilities related projects, including moves of various sizes, including Providence Medical Technology, Roche, Prothena, and Protagonist Therapeutics. Ms. Hom received an associate degree in Computer Technology from Heald College in 1997.