Talented Immigrants Are a Boon to Real Estate — Keep That Pipeline Open

Years ago, I asked the CEO of a prominent shopping center investment firm, “Whom do you deem three of the smartest commercial real estate (CRE) practitioners?” I can’t recall two of the names he cited. The one I do remember is Sandeep Mathrani.

Mathrani was born in India and immigrated to the U.S., where he earned a master’s from Stevens Institute of Technology. During his illustrious career, he has served as CEO of WeWork and vice chairman of Brookfield Properties. However, aside from his status as a respected CRE deal-maker, Mathrani also illustrates an immigration debate now underway. And it has major ramifications for the U.S. economy — including its CRE sector.

American capitalism cannot afford to lose access to future Mathranis. That would be the economic equivalent of curtailing the human body’s blood flow to vital organs. Yet, America could be deprived of this resource depending on how a new administration shapes immigration policy. 

Therefore, C-suite executives should insist upon a panoramic vision of talent pools. At the core of most initiatives for talent diversity is the drive to widen an industry’s human capital pipeline. The inherent logic is simple: Talent can be found in “ponds” other than those that a firm would historically “fish.” That doesn’t require the corporate anglers of talent acquisition to cease recruiting in traditional ponds. It simply means a willingness to diversify their supply chain.

The technology sector understood that proposition years ago — as evidenced by the number of major corporations now led by former international students such as Satya Nadella of Microsoft. But how does this concern the CRE industry, which generally doesn’t design software, EV vehicles or AI?

The CRE sector does act as stewards of the built environment. Its office and industrial properties house the innovative companies that employ foreign talent and, in many cases, will be launched and managed by such immigrant talent.

To illustrate, office sector leasing is relying increasingly on demand from technology companies, including those participating in the AI revolution, as reported by CBRE. Many of those tenants will be startups formed by immigrant professionals with STEM backgrounds. They are the same entrepreneurs who have honed their intellectual capital at some of America’s best universities.

Another former international student, Sandeep Nijhawan, has been working to decarbonize the production of steel, the construction product that is the literal core of the built environment. Nijhawan is the CEO of Colorado-based Electra, a manufacturing innovator that is pioneering green steel, a material made without consuming fuels such as coal, natural gas or hydrogen.

Additionally, firms such as Nadella’s Microsoft will be CRE investment drivers with plans to increase the development of data centers supporting the expansion of AI activity. Hence, scholars at the prestigious Wharton School, which has incubated numerous CRE executives (including myself), have acknowledged the importance of immigration and its global talent pipeline. In his recent book The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers, Wharton professor Zeke Hernandez emphasized the economic rationale for all forms of immigration instead of the conventional arguments based strictly on humanitarian considerations.

His Wharton colleague, professor Britta Glennon, also debunks the xenophobic logic that skilled professionals from overseas are stealing American jobs. On the contrary, Glennon demonstrates in the Journal of Economic Perspectives (in an article titled “Skilled Immigrants, Firms and the Global Geography of Innovation”) that highly skilled immigrants are a source of job creation. They are more likely to establish new businesses than their American-born counterparts — by one estimate, 80 percent more likely. Thus, high-skilled immigration should not be viewed as a zero-sum game: It is wealth-accretive for the national economy.

Min Chan, a Project REAP alum and immigration attorney, has also recognized the value proposition of this international talent pool. She and a team of technology professionals are developing an AI-driven platform to assist companies in absorbing this human capital. They aim to help highly skilled STEM and management professionals navigate America’s immigration system. Given the number of H-1B visa corporate sponsors, combined with universities such as Wharton hosting significant international student populations, there are organizational stakeholders who should welcome a more efficient process for absorbing global talent.

So, just as financial capital can be imported via the federal EB-5 program, likewise can human capital through other visas. It seems conclusive that global talent is beneficial for the economy — notwithstanding the nattering naysayers who would deny modernity. 

Accordingly, the CRE sector should be among the loudest industry voices clamoring for the retention of global talent immigration and other forms of diverse talent acquisition. The future of our national demographic profile and geopolitical standing suggests it would be myopic to be silent.

Lamont Blackstone, an urban development consultant who structures public-private partnerships, is the advisory council chair and former board chair of the CRE talent initiative known as Project REAP.