Kathleen McCarthy is the Global Co-Head of Blackstone Real Estate. Blackstone is the largest owner of commercial real estate globally with a nearly $600 billion real estate portfolio and $339 billion in investor capital under management (as of March 31, 2024), owning and operating assets across every major geography and sector, including logistics, residential, office, hospitality and retail. Ms. McCarthy focuses on driving performance and growth for Blackstone’s Real Estate business.

Ms. McCarthy previously served as Global Chief Operating Officer of Blackstone Real Estate. Before joining Blackstone in 2010, Ms. McCarthy worked at Goldman Sachs, where she focused on investments for the Real Estate Principal Investment Area. Ms. McCarthy began her career at Goldman Sachs in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group.

Ms. McCarthy received a BA from Yale University. Ms. McCarthy is currently serving a three-year term as Chair of the Real Estate Roundtable, the industry’s top federal advocacy organization. She also serves on the boards of City Harvest and the Blackstone Charitable Foundation, and is the President of the Board of Trustees of The Nightingale-Bamford School.

Jeff DeBoer is the founding President and CEO of The Real Estate Roundtable. He has been at the forefront of national policy affecting the real estate industry for the past 40 years.

The Real Estate Roundtable represents the leadership of the nation’s top 150 privately owned and publicly-held real estate ownership, development, lending and management firms, as well as the elected leaders of the 18 major national real estate industry trade associations. Roundtable member portfolios contain over 12 billion square feet of office, retail and industrial properties valued at nearly $4 trillion; over 5 million apartment units; and in excess of 6 million hotel rooms. The 18 national trade associations participating with the Roundtable represent more than 3 million people directly employed in the real estate industry.

Mr. DeBoer also chairs the National Real Estate Organizations, a 18 member real estate trade association coalition focused on industry communication, advocacy and diversity efforts as well as the Real Estate Industry Information Sharing and Analysis Center (RE-ISAC), an organization dedicated to enhancing communication between the industry and federal policymakers on terrorism threats, building security, and major incident reporting. He is a founding member of the steering committee of the Coalition to Insure Against Terrorism (CIAT) and for several years he co-chaired the Advisory Board of the RAND Corporation’s Center for Terrorism Risk Management Policy. Mr. DeBoer previously served on the Advisory Board of Washington DC’s Smithsonian National Zoological Park and Conservation Biology Institute.

Mr. DeBoer has discussed real estate and economic policy issues numerous times in Congressional testimony as well as on FOX News, Bloomberg Television, MSNBC and CNBC; and his editorials have been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. In 2010, Globest.com named Mr. DeBoer a “top 10 Industry Newsmaker of the Decade”; in 2013 Commercial Property Executive named him one of the “30 most influential people in real estate”; in 2016 Real Estate Forum honored him as the “Voice of the Industry” and one of the nation’s top CRE bosses; in 2017 Washington Life Magazine included Mr. DeBoer in its “Power 100” list of Washington DC’s most influential unelected, non-governmental people; and since 2017, The Hill has placed Mr. DeBoer on its annual list of the top lobbyists in Washington DC, a list it called: “the players at the top of their game, known for their ability to successfully navigate the byzantine and competitive world of federal policymaking.” In 2024, in recognition of his positive influence on national public policy, Commercial Property Executive presented Mr. DeBoer with its Lifetime Achievement award.

Mr. DeBoer earned degrees from Washington and Lee University School of Law (JD) and Yankton College (BA).

Representative French Hill is serving his sixth term representing Arkansas's second Congressional District. In Congress, Rep. Hill is the Chair of the influential House Financial Services Committee.

He was previously Vice Chair of the House Financial Services Committee and Chair of the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Inclusion. He also served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Rep. Hill has advocated for a number of The Real Estate Roundtable’s priorities, including GSE reform, reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program, and terrorism risk insurance.

Prior to his congressional service, Rep. Hill was actively engaged in the Arkansas business community for two decades as a commercial banker and investment manager. He was also the Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Delta Trust & Banking Corp.

Before working in community banking, Rep. Hill served as a senior official in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. From 1989 until 1991, Rep. Hill served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Corporate Finance. One of his key assignments was to represent the U.S. as a negotiator in the historic bilateral talks with Japan, known as the Structural Impediments Initiative (SII). After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Rep. Hill led the design of U.S. technical assistance to the emerging economies of eastern and central Europe in banking and securities. In 1991, President Bush appointed Rep. Hill as Executive Secretary to the President's Economic Policy Council (EPC), where he coordinated all White House economic policy. For his leadership and service at the Treasury and the White House, Rep. Hill was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Nicholas Brady in January 1993.

(BS, Vanderbilt University, 1979)

Ross Perot Jr. serves as Chairman of The Perot Companies, which manages the various Perot family interests that include real estate, oil and gas, and financial investments. Additionally, Mr. Perot is Chairman of Hillwood, a Texas-based, leading global real estate development company he founded in 1988.

That same year, Mr. Perot developed Fort Worth Alliance Airport, the country's first industrial airport, through a unique public-private partnership. The airport now anchors AllianceTexas, a 27,000-acre master-planned, mixed-use community in North Texas. The area is home to the AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone, an integrated testbed for both surface and air mobility technology to test, scale, and commercialize. Since its inception, AllianceTexas has become home to 590 companies, generating nearly $130 billion in regional economic impact and creating more than 66,000 direct jobs.

As an aviation enthusiast, Mr. Perot completed the first helicopter flight around the world in less than 30 days in 1982 and served as a pilot in the United States Air Force. Mr. Perot then became chairman of the Air Force Memorial Foundation, leading the 14-year effort to build the United States Air Force Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Perot is co-founder of Perot Systems Corporation and served in various roles within the company including CEO, Chairman of the Board, and member of its Board of Directors. Perot Systems was acquired by Dell Inc. in 2009, at which time Mr. Perot joined their Board of Directors, where he served until 2013.

Mr. Perot currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and on the boards of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Hoover Institution, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a Board Member Emeritus for Vanderbilt University, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, and St. Mark's School of Texas.

(BA, Vanderbilt University, 1981)

Representative Josh Gottheimer is currently serving his fifth term representing New Jersey's Fifth Congressional District in the northernmost part of the state, which includes parts of Bergen, Passaic, Sussex and Warren counties.

Rep. Gottheimer helped launch the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus in 2017 and served as Co-Chair during the 115th through 118th Congresses. He now serves as Vice Chair, continuing to promote commonsense over extremism and working across party lines on key issues such as lowering taxes, protecting the environment, making healthcare more affordable, strengthening national security, and improving infrastructure.

He also serves as Co-Chair of the bipartisan SALT Caucus.

Rep. Gottheimer serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where he is the Ranking Member of the National Security Agency and Cyber Subcommittee and a member of the Defense Intelligence and Overhead Architecture Subcommittee. He also serves on the House Financial Services Committee, where he is a member of the Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions; the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence; the Subcommittee on Capital Markets; and the Task Force on Monetary Policy, Treasury Market Resilience, and Economic Prosperity.

During the 117th Congress, Rep. Gottheimer helped craft and pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—the largest infrastructure investment in a century—as well as the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act to boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and reduce reliance on foreign countries.

Prior to running for Congress, Rep. Gottheimer worked for Burson-Marsteller, the Federal Communications Commission, Ford Motor Company, and Microsoft. During his time at the Federal Communications Commission, he was the first Director of Office of Public-Private Initiatives, partnering with private companies to break through roadblocks and solve national problems.

(BA University of Pennsylvania, 1997; Attended Oxford University, 1997-98; JD Harvard University, 2004)

Ambassador (Ret.) Timmy T. Davis, Senior Advisor at Mavik, is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, was confirmed as U.S. Ambassador to the State of Qatar on August 4, 2022, and served in that role until September 2025.

In September, Ambassador Davis was appointed as President & Partner at Irth Capital Management.

Prior to his ambassadorship, he served as Executive Assistant to Secretaries of State Michael R. Pompeo and Antony J. Blinken, and as U.S. Consul General in Basra, Iraq. His earlier overseas postings included Guatemala City; Najaf, Iraq; Canberra, Australia; and Bogotá, Colombia.

Domestically, Ambassador Davis held several senior leadership roles within the Department of State and the White House, including Senior Watch Officer in the State Department Operations Center; Special Assistant to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Director for Iraq at the National Security Council; Deputy Chief of Staff to the Special Presidential Envoy to Counter-ISIL; Senior Advisor to the Counselor of the Department; Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs; and Acting Chief of Staff of the Department of State.

Ambassador Davis holds the Distinguished Honor Award and multiple Superior and Meritorious Honor awards. He is also the recipient of the Department's Ryan C. Crocker Award for Outstanding Leadership in Expeditionary Diplomacy and the American Foreign Service Association's William R. Rivkin Award for Constructive Dissent.

Ambassador Davis served in the U.S. Marine Corps for nearly a decade prior to joining the Foreign Service.

(BA, University of Alabama)

Vik Uppal is the Founder, CEO and CIO of Mavik.

Prior to founding Mavik, Vik was a Partner and Head of Real Estate at Axar Capital Management and Managing Director at Fortress Investment Group. He joined Fortress from Mount Kellett Capital Management, where he was co-head of North American real estate investments. Vik began his career as a real estate operator and developer focused on acquiring distressed and underperforming assets.

Mr. Uppal also regularly shares insights on the commercial real estate industry, real estate investing, and his outlook on the market with national and industry media outlets. His commentary has appeared in Bloomberg, Pensions & Investments, and other publications.

(BS, University of St. Thomas, 2006; MS, Columbia University)