Best Minds: Dorthy Bright, Chief Operating Officer, RCLCO Real Estate Advisors

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What are the steps to becoming a successful female real estate executive?

In this episode, RCLCO Managing Director and CEO Gadi Kaufmann speaks with Chief Operating Officer Dorthy Bright about technology’s role in her career development, the challenges of starting her own software company to help shared space providers, and the importance of philanthropy in raising the next generation of female business leaders.

“I think people have charisma, but there are no natural born leaders. You may have the charisma, but you may not make the right decisions.”– Dorthy Bright

About Dorthy Bright

Dorthy Bright joins the RCLCO team as Chief Operating Officer after an extensive career in commercial real estate and technology. She brings a diverse background of successfully working with both seed-stage and legacy companies. Dorthy is responsible for overseeing operations and sales for the entirety of RCLCO.

Dorthy started her career in commercial real estate as an accountant and assumed progressive roles in finance, asset management, and eventually became the President and COO of a shared space provider. In this role, she was able to reposition a company through a distressed economic environment into a prospering company.

Parallel to her commercial real estate career Dorthy continued to pursue her interests in technology by co-founding Executive Technology Services, Inc. (ETS); WUN Systems, LLC; and HappyDesk. All companies catered to the shared space environment by providing technology and software services. She was able to successfully exit her technology career when WUN Systems was sold to Yardi.

About Gadi Kaufmann & RCLCO

Gadi Kaufmann is Managing Director and CEO of RCLCO, a premier end-to-end solutions provider in the real estate sector. RCLCO offers entity- and portfolio-level strategy planning, economic and market analysis advisory work, due diligence and underwriting services, workouts and restructuring work, turnkey development management services, and transaction services. Gadi joined RCLCO in 1979. He specializes in economic consulting for real estate projects and portfolios; corporate strategy planning and management consulting at the enterprise level; transactional and negotiation services; and financing and capital formation strategy formulation and implementation. He is an active board and committee member of several industry and academic organizations, including the PREA Board of Directors, Editorial Advisory Board Member of The Institutional Real Estate Letter – North America, Chairman of the New Programs Committee of PREA, Trustee of ULI, Governor of the ULI Foundation, and member of the boards of the Ziman Center for Real Estate and the Luskin School for Public Policy at UCLA.

RCLCO is proud to be the “first call” for real estate developers, investors, the public sector, and non-real estate organizations seeking strategic and tactical advice regarding property investment, planning, and development. RCLCO leverages quantitative analytics and a strategic planning framework to provide end-to-end business planning and implementation solutions at an entity, portfolio, or project level.

Topics in this episode include:

• The career journey to arrive at RCLCO
• Working in the executive suite space before leaving to create technology startup for shared spaces
• The impact and influence of technology on Dorthy’s career path
• Playing poker as an cerebral exercise
• The importance of volunteering, specifically focused on mentoring young women in their careers

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