Kylie VanBuren.
Kylie VanBuren, 28
Senior Real Estate Manager at Industrious
Back when she was at Colby College, Kylie VanBuren was a runner. That’s good for someone in real estate. You need hustle.
VanBuren grew up in upstate New York and her father works for CBRE. (We should get it out of the way: Yes, her last name is pretty, pretty close to Martin Van Buren’s. And she, like the Kinderhook-born eighth president, hails from upstate New York. But the known connections end there.)
When she was still at Colby, VanBuren took an internship at her father’s brokerage, where she was mentored by Kyle Schoppmann and in CBRE’s prestigious Wheel Program, which rotates members through various parts of the brokerage. She wound up serving four years at the firm before being offered an opportunity to go to the flex office provider Industrious two and a half years ago.
“I had seen the Industrious space at 215 Park Avenue South … and I was really impressed with everyone,” VanBuren said. It was a chance to work on all aspects of a deal. “Underwriting, LOI [letters of intent] and legal negotiation. At a young age, this seems like a really great company” to learn it all. She came in as a transaction associate and has since risen to a senior real estate manager, training younger associates and managing the company’s pipeline of deals.
Of course, flex office was perhaps a less than safe bet at the start of the pandemic. But that proved to be a good chance to learn and improve.
“It gave us the opportunity to accelerate some of the larger goals we had pre-COVID,” VanBuren said. “We moved our original leased assets over to management contracts. That’s the biggest thing. Peri [Demestihas, senior director of real estate at Industrious, and VanBuren’s business partner] and I were successful in converting 450,000 square feet in lease liabilities into long-term partnerships and/or management agreements.”—M.G.
