Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities in Commercial Real Estate Finance

Alexander J. Szikla previously served on Meridian Capital’s Healthcare Group helping raise approximately $3 billion in debt and equity placements in addition to working on select advisory and sales engagements for owners, operators and developers of skilled nursing facilities, assisted/independent living facilities, hospitals, dialysis centers, etc.
Prior to joining Meridian, Alex served as the Head of Acquisitions at Newcastle Realty Services working alongside the firm’s President to spearhead growth and broaden the firm’s national footprint through expansion into the multifamily and student housing sectors. Alex also co-founded the Plato Student Platform which provides construction and asset management services while overseeing the portfolio’s student housing investments.

Heather McClure is responsible for nationwide structured finance executions on multifamily, single-family build-to-rent, industrial, retail, office, and hospitality properties at Walker & Dunlop.
Prior to joining Walker & Dunlop, Ms. McClure was Senior Vice President of Capital Markets at Behringer, an investment management firm. There, she structured, executed, and managed $1.9 billion in debt financings on 14,000 apartment units, 1,000,000 SF of office space, a large iconic hotel with mixed use, and foreign industrial and retail.
Ms. McClure has received the Dallas Women in Business Award as well as a Women of Influence award. She received a BBA in Accounting and a BA in Latin American studies from Texas A&M University, as well as an MBA from the University of Texas.

Joe joined Visual Lease with decades of experience from several senior finance and operations roles for organizations in the healthcare, business services, real estate, and leasing sectors.
Before Visual Lease, Joe worked at EY (Ernst & Young), where he served as the firm’s Lease Accounting Technology Leader helping clients to navigate the technology landscape for the new lease accounting standards.
Joe is a Certified Public Accountant in New York and New Jersey and holds a B.A. in Accounting from Pace University.

Marc founded Visual Lease in 1996. Under his leadership, Visual Lease grew from a point solution to a robust platform, expanding its customer base to include 1,000 organizations of all sizes and industries. Today, Marc serves as Founder & Executive Chairman of the organization, helping to guide the company’s continued growth and solution innovation.
He is an expert in lease negotiation, lease management, and lease accounting negotiation and has been featured in Forbes, The Real Deal, GlobeSt., and more. Additionally, he often lectures on lease topics at New York University’s Real Estate Institute, AECRE, American Bar Association, Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Practicing Law Institute, ICSC and the Institute of Internal Auditors, and is regarded as a top faculty at CoreNet Global Learning.
An attorney by training, he practiced law in New York City and negotiated commercial leases for some of the largest companies in the country. He is a member of both the New York and New Jersey Bar Associations and holds a J.D. from Georgetown University.