TSCG’s Kristen Pash Was Brought On to Take the Brokerage National

Kristen Pash is taking her expertise — and retail tenants — across the pond from London to New York City.

The 53-year-old California native has decades of experience creating relationships with international retailers in London, but now she’s back on native soil to take on her new role as vice president at TSCG, tasked with helping take the retail brokerage national, and bringing her impressive Rolodex of contacts with her.

“We realized she would make a huge asset in our New York office, as a lot of retailers start their journey into the U.S. through New York,” Nichole Popovics, executive vice president and managing director at TSCG, said. “And once you meet her, you just instantly fall in love with her. She’s just such a sweet person.”

Pash didn’t cultivate those relationships overnight. By the time she began her position at TSCG in October, Pash had a long history in the retail world with Westfield Corporation, now Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, in both the U.S. and abroad. (She joined a couple of months before TSCG rebranded from its prior name, The Shopping Center Group — another piece of the national push.)

With origins dating to 1959, Australia-based Westfield first planted roots in the U.S. when it purchased the Trumbull Mall in Connecticut in 1977. Shortly after, Westfield began acquiring malls all across the country. Pash stepped in a number of years later, in that trench.

After a stint with jeans giant Levi’s from 1995 to 1998 — during which she won the “Rookie of the Year” award (which she said sounds made up) — Pash joined Westfield in 1998 as vice president of leasing for the company’s Western, Northwestern and Midwestern regions.

In that role, Pash successfully leased about 30 properties along the West Coast in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Seattle and Portland, Ore.

There were also redevelopment opportunities, which Pash said she found the most exciting, as they often required hard work and tight turnaround times regarding construction, design and leasing.

“It was a powerful company, but still growing,” Pash said. “It was exciting and perfect for me, because it was quite ambitious and they gave me a lot of direction, but also autonomy. We had to work in a way that was creative and exciting for the communities, but didn’t impact the existing shops.”

Pash’s key achievements during that time were the redevelopments of “flagship destinations.” These included the Westfield Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks, Calif., L.A.’s The Promenade, and the San Francisco Centre, which the company acquired and later partnered with another developer to redevelop in 2003. Coincidentally, the San Francisco Centre was the same building where Pash’s father worked as a menswear buyer for a department store, inspiring Pash’s jones for retail.

But when the Great Recession hit in 2007 and work started to slow, Pash decided to switch gears — not just into a different role, but into a whole new country.

“We’ve worked together quite a bit, and I was thrilled for her when she made the big move,” said Holly Cohen, one of Pash’s closest friends who’s in the retail business herself. “We share a lot of the same values about life and our industry, and she’s just a really good person and really solid in her work.”

After making the move across the Atlantic, Pash took a role as Westfield’s senior leasing manager in London in January 2011 and dove headfirst into the deep end when the company was building Westfield Stratford City for the 2012 London Olympics.

The 180-acre shopping complex — also the first shopping destination ever built specifically for an Olympics — was the entrance to that year’s Games, complete with 300 stores, 50 restaurants, three hotels, 17 movie theaters and a casino, The Guardian reported at the time.

In its first year, Westfield Stratford City attracted 47 million customers, and it now attracts as many as 51 million visitors annually, according to the Foundation for Future London.

Also in London, Pash worked to open the first Tesla showroom in the U.K. at the 2.6 million-square-foot Westfield London mall, where Elon Musk himself showed up for the 2013 grand opening, Pash said.

And Tesla wasn’t the only U.S.-based brand Pash brought over with her to the U.K. 

Pash’s team directed Westfield London’s expansion project to 380 shops and leased an additional 800,000 square feet of retail space to both U.S. and European tenants.

Those tenants, which have attracted 29 million visitors annually, include brands such as cosmetics retailer Sephora, clothing store American Eagle Outfitters, sport and leisure brand Oysho and Irish athleisure company Gym+Coffee — all of which were first to the U.K. market under Pash’s stewardship. She also worked with Cohen, founder of her own boutique retail advisory services firm, to help J.Crew establish a store in Westfield London. 

Pash attracted other tenants to open flagship stores in Westfield London’s portfolio, including Apple, Nike, Victoria’s Secret, Lululemon, Forever 21, West Elm, Longchamp and Charlotte Tilbury. As far as luxury retailers go, Pash completed deals with Gucci, Tiffany & Co., Dior, Louis Vuitton, Prada and Rolex at the shopping center.

“I had a lot of relationships in the U.S. and formed a lot in the U.K.,” Pash said. “It was really interesting to be able to sort of combine those and see how the businesses can work a bit better.”

Pash ended up extending her stay in London and ultimately got U.K. citizenship, staying in her role as London’s senior leasing manager for 12 years and cultivating key client relationships throughout the U.K. and Europe.

Then things changed a bit at Westfield, which threw a spanner in the works.

In 2018, French property group Unibail-Rodamco bought Westfield and acquired all of its shopping centers in a $25 billion deal, according to an announcement at the time.

With a portfolio valued at $52.2 billion, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield now operates 67 shopping centers in 11 countries — including 39 that carry the Westfield brand, according to the company’s website. The company also has $3.7 billion in its development pipeline, with a focus on projects in the U.S. (recently reversing its strategy from 2022 to pull out of the U.S. market).

That includes its mixed-use Westfield Old Orchard redevelopment project in Skokie, Ill., which is expected to break ground in 2025 and open to residents in 2027 with approximately 400 luxury apartments and ground-level retail, according to an announcement.

A few years after the change in ownership, Pash decided to resign from Westfield in September 2023 — while still keeping her U.K. citizenship — and move back to the U.S. to be closer to her family in Danville, Calif.

In October, Pash started her new role as vice president at TSCG, a full-service real estate brokerage firm largely known as the retail brokers for major brands such as Starbucks and Whole Foods in New York City.

But Pash’s job is to take the TSCG name national. She is bringing her experience and contacts from the U.K. and Europe to help retailers expand in the U.S., as well as advising on rents, landlord assignments, asset management, construction, operations, leasing and productivity. 

“These international clients are looking to expand into the U.S., but they’re looking for someone to trust,” Pash said. “I’m doing that by sharing my experience with potential tenants who could come in. What I do is much more involved.”

Popovics said Pash’s overseas experience and strong networking were key reasons the company hired her to take the brand national. “Her longevity, connections and relationships are going to not only make her future [a] success, but the company as well,” Popovics said. “We really see ourselves in lockstep and hand-in-hand and growing together.”

While Pash has made waves in her new position in her first few months, Popovics added that TSCG intends for Pash to continue working with “best in class” retailers and searching for landlord relationships, as well as helping international retailers grow their footprint in New York City.

As for her outlook on retail in New York City as a whole, Pash is optimistic, saying the market has stabilized post-COVID-19 and customers largely want to return to in-person shopping. That has helped her begin to craft a strategy for drawing brands to the TSCG stable. 

“What the customer wants and what the retailer wants are starting to align,” Pash said. “New Yorkers are consumers, they are shoppers. They like that experience, and it’s really built into our culture.”

And, while online shopping isn’t going away, Pash said New York is resilient in brick-and-mortar retail, as it’s “highly ambitious” and consumers want that tangible shopping experience back. She pointed to Manhattan’s SoHo, Fifth Avenue and Hudson Yards as well as Brooklyn’s Williamsburg as increasingly popular shopping corridors offering something “unique and special.” 

She is still working on her first New York City deals amid the brokerage’s national push.

And Pash is cognizant of herself as an example for other women in retail real estate. 

“TSCG has been very open about supporting women in their field and expanding their retail reach,” Cohen said. “And I think Kristen is just another example, at a much more senior level, of what she can bring to the table. I think she’ll be great.”

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.