Future of Commercial Real Estate

Ms. Wong is the Chief Executive Officer of Champion Real Estate Investment Trust, overseeing its strategic development as well as asset management and enhancement. She also spearheads the team to seek for growth opportunities, formulate acquisition and investment strategies and monitor the capital structure of the Trust, including the planning and overseeing of capital raising activities from the market.

Ms. Wong has almost 20 years’ experience in local and overseas financial industry. Prior to joining the Trust, she worked at Citigroup and J.P. Morgan's investment banking division to offer strategic advices to a number of blue chip corporates and Hong Kong real estate companies. She has also executed numerous landmark IPOs, capital markets fund-raisings and strategic M&A transactions.

Ms. Wong graduated from University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) - Ross School of Business with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree. She was honoured with the titles of Best CEO by FinanceAsia in 2020; Best IR by CEO by the Hong Kong Investor Relations Association from 2017 to 2020; Asia’s Best CEO by Corporate Governance Asia from 2017 to 2020; and Directors Of the Year Awards – Listed Companies Executive Director by the Hong Kong Institute of Directors in 2018. She is the Chairperson of Asia Pacific Real Estate Association Hong Kong chapter and a Fellow member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Romel C Cañete joined NKF in 1989 and currently leads the firm's financial services group as its vice chairman In this capacity, Mr Cañete provides full range of financial services for Newmark Knight Frank's diverse clients. He specializes in financial analyses and structured finance solutions pertaining to corporate real estate occupancy and investments in commercial, hospitality and multi housing real estate.

Mr Cañete successfully launched Real Estate Index Linked Structure ( in late 2017 REILS is an innovative structured finance product that provides tax efficient cross border investments in U S real estate.

In 2013 Mr Cañete received the coveted Henry Hart Rice Achievement Award for the Most Ingenious Deal of the Year for his role in representing Morgan Stanley in a 1 2 million square foot headquarter lease at One New York Plaza the year before. The deal was the largest single asset office lease structure in New York City since 2008. Then again in 2020 Mr Cañete received the “most Ingenious Deal of the Year” for his advisory role in the New York City Health Hospital Transaction at 50 Water Street.

Mr Cañete holds a Master of Business Administration degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he concentrated in investment banking and real estate finance.

Timothy H. Savage is a Professor of Real Estate at NYU's Schack Institute of Real Estate, where he is the Faculty Director of the CREFC Center for Real Estate Finance. He is the former Senior Managing Economist and Principal Data Scientist of CBRE Econometric Advisors (the former Torto Wheaton Research Group).

Tim is an economist with nearly 20 years of experience at international consulting firms such as Charles River Associates and Navigant Consulting. His focus is the use of machine learning to evaluate business strategy. He speaks frequently to institutional investors in commercial real estate on macroeconomics, monetary and fiscal policy, and the potential impacts of big data and technological disruption. His research has been twice discussed in the Economist, and he has addressed the National League of Cities on uses of big data in policymaking. His commentary has appeared in the Economist, Vox Media and the Wall Street Journal.

Tim is a Distinguished Fellow of the NAIOP Research Foundation and a Counselor of Real Estate. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Erez is the author of the Real Estate Titans book, the first manuscript ever to interview 11 real estate moguls from around the world and share their lessons and stories. The book became a National Bestseller as well as a USA Today, Amazon, and WSJ bestseller, among others.

Erez is also a Managing Partner in a real estate development firm based in Mexico City that is focused on residential and mixed use and is also a founding partner with at a real estate investment management firm focused on industrial acquisitions in the US and Mexico. He was previously a partner at Thor and has also worked for Apollo Real Estate, the Carlyle Group and Evercore Partners. In over 15 years in real estate, he has been involved in more than US$4 billion of real estate investments and ground up developments in the US and Latin America in all the real estate sectors. 

Erez is Chair for Mission Advancement at ULI and received the Rising Star Award from ULI. He graduated summa cum laude from Manhattan College and received his MBA from Wharton Business School where he was a Bucksbaum Fellow.