Executive Board

Daniel B. Hurwitz

Chairman, 2019-2020, Founder & CEO, Raider Hill Advisors, New York, NY, United States

Mr. Hurwitz provides strategic, executive, and operational oversight for the portfolio companies owned by Raider Hill's clients as well as acquisition and retail advisory services for all investment activity. Prior to Raider Hill, Mr. Hurwitz held a variety of positions in the retail and real estate sectors dating back to 1986. Most recently, during a 16-year tenure at DDR Corp, Mr. Hurwitz led numerous departments beginning with leasing and development in 1999 and culminating with the responsibility of reviving the company in the post-recession era as CEO commencing in 2010. Mr. Hurwitz also served as interim CEO of Brixmor Property Group from February 2016 through May 2016.

Professionally, Mr. Hurwitz is a member of the Board of Directors of Brixmor Property Group and retailer Diamonds Direct. Additionally, Mr. Hurwitz serves as an advisor to the Board of Directors of Edens and is currently Chairman of ICSC. Mr. Hurwitz also previously served as a member of the Board of Directors of GGP, serving as Lead Director, NAREIT Executive Board of Governors, and Governance Committee, in addition to the Board of Directors of DDR Corp., CubeSmart, Sonae Sierra Brasil, SA, and Boscov’s Department Store, Inc. He is a frequent speaker at real estate industry functions and has repeatedly been a guest discussing retail and real estate trends on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, and Fox Business.

John R. Morrison, CRX, CDP

Vice Chairman, 2019-2020, Former President & CEO, Choice Properties REIT, Toronto, ON, Canada

John R. Morrison is the past vice chairman and former president and chief executive officer of Choice Properties Real Estate Investment Trust. He held these positions for over six years. He has over 40 years of experience in the commercial real estate industry with a primary focus on retail real estate. Mr. Morrison was president and chief executive officer of Primaris Real Estate Investment Trust from 2009 to 2013. Prior to serving in that role, Mr. Morrison was president, Real Estate Management, at Oxford Properties Group.

Mr. Morrison has been an active member of ICSC for 38 years. He is a third-term trustee of ICSC and currently serves as vice chairman on the Executive Board. He is a director of the ICSC Foundation and chairman of the ICSC Foundation Canada. He is also former vice chairman of the Urban Land Institute Toronto District Council and is past chairman of the Ryerson University Real Estate Advisory Committee. Mr. Morrison also serves on a number of volunteer and corporate boards including Automotive Properties Real Estate Investment Trust where he serves as lead trustee and the Dean’s Advisory Council at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University in Toronto. Mr. Morrison is an institute-certified director with the Institute of Corporate Directors.

Valerie Richardson, CRX, CLS

ICSC Past Chairman, Vice President - Real Estate, The Container Store, Coppell, TX, United States

Valerie Richardson, CRX, CLS, has over 35 years of experience in retail real estate, working for brands such as Trammell Crow Company, Ann Taylor, Barnes & Noble and most recently, The Container Store, where she has led the real estate team for 19 years. An active industry participant and advocate, Ms. Richardson was elected Chairman of ICSC for the 2018-2019 term, after having served on the Board of Trustees since 2004. She was the first ICSC Chairman to come to the post from an active retail company.

In her role at The Container Store, Ms. Richardson is responsible for site evaluation and lease negotiation, along with the coordination of store design and construction for the brand’s nationwide expansion program. She currently serves on ICSC’s Executive Board, its Nominating and Governance and Executive Compensation Committees and, until 2018, on the Board of the ICSC Foundation. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Kimco Realty Corp and served as a trustee at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center. Ms. Richardson earned an M.B.A. in Real Estate from the University of North Texas and a B.S. in Education from Texas State University. She resides in Dallas, Texas, is married, and has two children and one grandchild.

Andrew W. Brien

Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer, Suria KLCC SDN BHD, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Andrew Brien is CEO of Suria KLCC and a management committee member at Malaysia’s KLCC Property Holdings Berhad. Before joining Suria KLCC, Brien held state and national management positions at Colgate-Palmolive, Lendlease Corp., Westfield Holdings and others. He is an active ICSC member and has pursued the growth of shopping center education in Southeast Asia. He is chairman of the ICSC Asia-Pacific Advisory Board, having served on this board while being ICSC’s Malaysia director.

John C. Dolson

Vice President - Real Estate, Nordstrom, Inc., Seattle, WA, United States

As vice president of real estate for Nordstrom, John Dolson supports the team responsible for the company’s real estate program, which includes full-line and Nordstrom Rack stores, offices and industrial space. John began his career at Nordstrom in 1999 as an intern in the real estate department, and he has been regional real estate manager, real estate director and a divisional vice president of real estate at the firm.

Conor C. Flynn

President/Chief Executive Officer, Kimco Realty Corporation, New Hyde Park, NY, United States

Conor Flynn was named CEO of Kimco Realty and appointed to the board in January 2016. He joined Kimco in 2003 as an asset manager and has held a variety of senior leadership roles there, including president, COO, chief investment officer and president of the Western region. Besides being an ICSC trustee, he is a licensed real estate broker in California and a member of NAREIT, The Real Estate Roundtable, and the Urban Land Institute.

Adam W. Ifshin

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, DLC Management Corporation, Elmsford, NY, United States

Adam Ifshin is CEO of DLC Management Corp., which he co-founded in 1991. Through his leadership, DLC has become one of the country’s largest owner-operators of retail shopping centers and among the most active acquirers of centers with value-added potential. Ifshin is also founder and president of Delphi Commercial Properties, co-founder and president of DLC Investment Securities Corp., and co-founder of DLC UrbanCore and DLC Development. Ifshin is chairman of the ICSC Government Relations Economic Sub-Committee and was chairman of the ICSC National Deal Making. He is also an active lobbyist for the shopping center industry and has testified in Congress on behalf of ICSC and The Real Estate Roundtable on the taxation of carried interests. Ifshin is a member of the Urban Land Institute and chairman of its Commercial and Retail Development Council.

Josip Kardun

Chief Executive Officer, Multi Corporation, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Josip Kardun is CEO of Multi Corporation BV. He has a long track record in the European retail sector after previous leadership roles at Atrium Group, German-owned developer ECE Projektmanagement, and Portuguese peer Sonae Sierra. From 2014-2017, Josip served as chief executive officer at Atrium Group where he gained extensive experience in international real estate development, construction and operation, and senior management. At ECE he worked for seven years in a number of senior positions, including chief investment officer and as head of the mergers & acquisitions management group. Kardun has a law degree from Goethe University in Frankfurt and sits on the executive board of ICSC Europe.

Laurie Mahowald

Vice President, Real Estate, Target Corporation, Minneapolis, MN, United States

As vice president of real estate for Target Corp., Laurie Mahowald oversees new-store growth strategy and roughly 1,800 existing stores across the country. Before this, she was director of property development for Target Canada, where she led property management, construction and store design. She is an ICSC Foundation board member and a member of the ICSC OAC Summit Program Planning Committee, as well as a member of the Urban Land Institute.

Sandeep Mathrani

Chief Executive Officer, Brookfield Properties Retail Group and Vice Chairman, Chicago, IL, United States

Sandeep Mathrani is CEO of Brookfield Properties Retail Group and Vice Chairman, Brookfield Properties. For nearly eight years, he served as CEO of GGP Inc. and was part of the group that recapitalized GGP in November 2010.

Prior to joining GGP in 2010, Sandeep was president of retail for Vornado Realty Trust, where he oversaw the U.S. retail real estate. Before that, he spent nearly a decade as executive vice president at Forest City Ratner, responsible for their retail development and leasing in the New York City metropolitan area. Sandeep serves on the executive board and the board of trustees for the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), executive board and current vice chair of NAREIT and on the board of directors of Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc.

Sandeep holds a Master of Engineering, Master of Management Science and Bachelor of Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J.

Jodie W. McLean

Chief Executive Officer, EDENS, Washington, DC, United States

Jodie McLean leads one of the nation’s major owners, operators and developers of retail real estate. McLean is responsible for EDENS’ strategy to move the portfolio to major urban centers, creating a portfolio of assets that are the center of community life. She became chief investment officer in 1997, president in 2002 and CEO in 2015. McLean is a trustee of both ICSC and the Urban Land Institute. She serves on the Pension Real Estate Association board and on the boards of several other institutions and charities. She is a member of the Liberty Fellowship (Aspen Institute) Class of 2009.

Glenn Rufrano

Chief Executive Officer, VEREIT, New York, NY, United States

Since assuming the role of CEO of VEREIT in 2015, Glenn Rufrano reconstituted the board of directors, formalized the VEREIT management team and introduced a business plan to guide the company’s strategy. Before joining VEREIT, Mr. Rufrano served as the chairman and CEO of O’Connor Capital Partners and was among the founders of O’Connor in 1983. Prior to rejoining O’Connor in 2013, Mr. Rufrano served as president and CEO of Cushman & Wakefield, Inc. From 2008 to 2010, he served as CEO of Centro Properties Group (an Australian public LPT). And, from 2007 to 2008, Mr. Rufrano served as CEO of Centro Properties Group U.S.

Mr. Rufrano has served on the board of directors for Ventas, Inc., Trizec Properties, Inc., Criimi Mae Inc., and General Growth Properties. He currently serves on the advisory boards at NYU’s Real Estate Institute and at The Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute Advisory Board at Baruch College. Mr. Rufrano currently serves on the dean’s council for the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts’ Advisory Board of Governors. He is a former trustee Urban Land Institute and serves on the board of New Alternatives for Children.

Mr. Rufrano earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rutgers University and Master of Science in Management and Real Estate from Florida International University.

Mark A. Schurgin

President, The Festival Companies, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Besides being chairman and co-founder of The Festival Cos., a leading developer-operator of retail and mixed-use properties and a full-service real estate advisory firm, Mark Schurgin is ICSC’s Western Region vice president and a board member of the ICSC Foundation. He is also a member of the Urban Land Institute. In 2008 the Schurgin Family Foundation endowed its first undergraduate scholarship with the ICSC Foundation and then did so again in 2011.

James Taylor

Chief Executive Officer & President, Brixmor Property Group, New York, NY, United States

James M. Taylor Jr. has served as Chief Executive Officer and President of Brixmor Property Group since May 2016 and has more than 20 years of experience in the commercial real estate industry. From 2012 until joining Brixmor, he was Executive Vice President — Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer for Federal Realty Investment Trust and a member of Federal Realty’s executive and investment committees. At Federal Realty, he was also responsible for sourcing and evaluating business development opportunities for its East Coast portfolio, as well as for operational oversight of its Southeast portfolio.

From 1998 to 2012, Mr. Taylor was a Senior Managing Director and the head of real estate investment banking at Eastdil Secured/Wells Fargo, where he successfully completed over $100 billion of public debt and equity offerings, M&A transactions, asset and portfolio sales, private equity placements, mortgage financings and bank loans for his real estate clients. Prior to joining Eastdil Secured, Mr. Taylor practiced corporate and securities law at Hunton & Williams, with a focus on equity REITs, and also worked as a senior accountant for Price Waterhouse in Washington, DC.

Mr. Taylor received a B.S. in Commerce and a J.D. from the University of Virginia, and he is a member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI).