Owen Thomas | CEO of Boston Properties

CEO of Boston Properties, Owen Thomas, joins Matt for the first conversation of 2022 on Leading Voices in Real Estate. Boston Properties is the largest office REIT, developing, investing, and managing Class A office buildings in Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C, with a portfolio of 193 properties. Owen exemplifies leadership in our industry with distinct parts of his career. First, he climbed the ladder at Morgan Stanley through a 24 year career, a large part of which was running their real estate state group, then serving as Chief Executive Officer of Morgan Stanley Asia. After his “retirement” from Morgan Stanley, Owen became Boston Properties’ CEO, where he’s served in the organization for close to a decade. Finally, he has made a commitment to the industry in key leadership positions, including serving as the immediate past Global Chair of the Urban Land Institute and his significant contribution to ULI’s Net Zero Imperative Initiative working to reduce our industry’s carbon footprint. Beyond sharing his career story, Owen provides insights on where he sees the office sector heading into the new year.

In addition, Owen is Director of the Urban Land Institute Foundation, a Director of the Real Estate Roundtable, a member of the Executive Board of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts and a member of the Economic Club of New York. He is a Director of Episcopal Charities of New York and formerly Chairman of the Pension Real Estate Association and Director of the University of Virginia Investment Management Company. Owen attended and is a former Trustee of Woodberry Forest School, received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Virginia and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.