Hannah Bernstein April, 29

A Chicagoan and a University of Miami alum, Hannah Bernstein April found her home office at JLL in her senior year of college, interning with its project management team in 2018.

But, being introduced to Joe Messina’s New York-based group at the brokerage prompted a pivot in her trajectory, and Bernstein became a permanent member of the leasing crew.

Bernstein April’s team has been having a big impact on the market recently, arranging a 193,573-square-foot expansion for BlackRock at Related Companies’ 50 Hudson Yards, bringing the company’s total footprint in the building to 1.2 million square feet.

“BlackRock had acquired so many companies over the past few years, it was just looking for a place to put everyone into one building, so it was just a matter of figuring out should they be expanding in the same building versus taking space across the street or down the street,” Bernstein April said. (Up until her wedding in February, she was just Bernstein.) “That’s a lot of what we do for BlackRock, but also other clients. There were complexities to it, like trying to figure out how to make it work for both Meta, the sublandlord, and BlackRock, the subtenant.”

Bernstein April’s role is different from the other brokers on the team, having less involvement in the actual negotiations. Instead, she works more like a financial analyst, advising clients on whether the structure of the lease is in the best interest of tenants.

All this internal number-crunching has made Bernstein April’s team almost like an extension of the companies they represent in lease deals.

“I’m in Excel all day, we’re building financial models, and it’s specialized for every single client,” Bernstein April said. “We analyze lease structures, we run different scenarios depending on who the client is, and help them understand the economic impact of their decisions. I like when it gives you a concrete answer.”