Elliot Bok, 29

U.K.-born and U.S.-raised Elliot Bok has had plenty of exposure to business over the course of his upbringing with a father in finance, and it seems he found his way to real estate naturally.

While studying business at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Bok dabbled in multifamily early and followed the trail to a summer internship with Tishman Speyer, where he ended up cutting his teeth in the office market helping the firm redevelop properties.

Right out of college, Bok landed a role at CBRE, which would lead to him lending a hand in some of the biggest office deals of 2023. These included representing Ralph Lauren in its 250,000-square-foot renewal at RXR’s 601 West 26th Street, as well as the expansion of Davis Polk & Wardwell to 700,000 square feet at 450 Lexington Avenue, another RXR property.

“We’re a 40-person group and we’re a little bit different from the typical real estate broker in that we’re more kind of specialists that are brought in for these bigger and more complicated deals,” Bok said. “It’s a lot of heavy-duty number running, a lot of dealing with companies’ accounting, putting together very professional-looking presentations for the top decision-makers at all these companies.”

Over the course of the next year, Bok foresees tenants moving into Class B space, but with the sort of caveats born of market expertise.

Owners in those asset classes will have trouble meeting the market with the kind of debt loads they carry and the interest rate environment. Even if the buildings reach 100 percent leased, they’re unlikely to be profitable enough to avoid foreclosure at the kind of rent Class B and C offices are renting for without a costly repositioning, according to Bok.