Reflections on RE Tech

After 7.5 years, Friday will be my last day with RE Tech Advisors. I am leaving to pursue a climate strategy position in private equity—more details to come. But for now, some reflections on my time with RE Tech. These are the memories that have stuck with me most clearly.

1.The sense of opportunity when launching the Climate & Energy (C&E) practice to “see what would happen” if we combined RE Tech’s expertise in real estate ESG with dedicated decarbonization services. The practice has since grown from 1 to 20+ people and helped stand up a couple dozen market-leading decarbonization programs for a wide range of clients.

2. The confusion from shipping off to business school, only to realize that I didn’t want to spend the next 2-3 years in a classroom when I could be on the front lines during the defining decade for climate action. So I returned to work a few weeks later (thanks Deb Cloutier, CRE !), started the C&E practice, and did the Yale Certificate in Financing and Deploying Clean Energy while working full time instead. Best career decision I ever made.

3. The satisfaction of seeing our clients succeed. Clients come to RE Tech at all stages of their ESG journey. Some with sophisticated programs looking to add a new component like climate, some just getting started, some responding to a particularly tricky LP request. One of the joys of RE Tech’s model is meeting those clients where they are, defining success, and helping them get there—not just as a detached consultant, but as an integrated part of their ESG programs.

4. The unmitigated pride of watching kick-ass young leaders emerge on my team and helping them grow. I would be a lot sadder about leaving if I didn’t feel that the C&E practice is in exactly the right hands with leadership from Emma Hughes , Freddy Boateng, CEM , and Chang Liu .

5. The quality time spent receiving mentorship from current and former RE Tech’ers like Alana Spencer, LEED AP BDC, Fitwel Ambassador , Erin Richmond , Deb Cloutier, CRE , Jack Davis , and Jason Koman . I’ve learned an incalculable amount from watching how you lead.

6. Keeping my Hammurabi’s Code Zoom background, and (understandably) needing to explain it so many times that my partner started keeping a tracker. Final count: 40+. Jim Landau I know you will be sad to see the last of the Code, but maybe you should make it your background to carry on the tradition?

7. The fulfillment of helping our staff thrive as both professionals and people. From supporting staff navigating mental health challenges to re-defining their roles to better suit their long-term career vision, I am proud to have been part of a team that cares about its people as whole humans.

8. The thrill of supporting DOE in launching the Better Climate Challenge, a flagship decarbonization partnership that set out to define the “north star” on climate leadership across industries. Maria Vargas , Hannah Debelius , and team are an absolute force when it comes to innovation and partnership-building, and it was fun to spend much of those 7+ years in the trenches making it happen.

9. The jokes and camaraderie on our weekly C&E team stand-ups. Seriously, y’all are some of the funniest people I’ve ever met—all the more so when you get together. I hope that your collective food aggression doesn’t get out of hand.

10. Retaining my role as Excel troubleshooter. Even after moving up to Director, I sometimes indulge in the guilty pleasure of hopping on Teams with staff of all levels to solve tricky Excel problems and build cool tools. It’s the little things in life. ??

11. The great adventure of RE Tech’s acquisition by Blackstone and integration with Legence. There is always uncertainty with any sort of acquisition, but becoming part of the Blackstone family unlocked new doors for RE Tech that I could scarcely have imagined at the time. It has been a wonderful experience and I’m excited to see how Legence realizes its mission to be a one-stop shop for decarbonization services.

12. Watching RE Tech’s evolution on DEI. It is more than just a buzzword or a set of KPIs—it’s a way of thinking that must be embedded in everything we do. I am proud that the team became more diverse across just about every metric during my time there. But that’s the thing about DEI: it will never be enough. It’s not a place you arrive at, but rather a value that must be constantly cultivated through everyday action, intentional hiring, and strategic direction. Keep up the great work!

13. Most of all, the once-in-a-generation opportunity to be in the trenches solving climate change. The conversation on climate in the built environment has shifted dramatically during my time at RE Tech alone. A decade ago, the focus was narrowly on short-term ROI and cost-savings—if you couldn’t justify a project or program based on that, it typically didn’t get done. Now, investment managers and capital markets understand that the value, liquidity, and risk of underlying assets is inextricably tied to their climate performance. Investor and regulatory pressure have intensified. Standards and frameworks have solidified to give us a clearer roadmap to net zero. Software and data quality have improved. This is due to the leaders, investors, consultants, analysts, engineers, activists, feds, developers, interns, and other professionals—many of whom operate behind the scenes—who saw the vision for a low-carbon world early and worked their butts off to make it happen. “How can we possibly get there?” has turned into “Let’s get to work!” Make no mistake, the next decade will define whether we can avoid the worst of effects of climate change, and the prognosis is still not great. But as Dana Meadows used to say: “We have exactly enough time, starting now.”

I’ll be taking some time off to explore and recharge before the next gig. But not too much. After all, there’s a lot of work to be done and just enough time to do it.