Leading Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Jeanne Myerson ’75
Myerson reinvented her career for the fourth time in her adult life in January, 2015. She is presently focused on a mix of independent consulting, corporate board directorships, and non-profit activities. Myerson’s present consulting assignments include family-owned company governance and generational transition strategies; business strategy, general management and compensation; investment company business plan and capitalization strategies. Jeanne’s non-profit energies are focused on urban public policy and improving urban place making through innovative public-private initiatives.
Myerson served as President and CEO of The Swig Company (www.swigco.com), from 1997 through 2014. The Swig Company is a private, US investment company with an 80-year history in investment, development, redevelopment, and management of commercial properties. During her tenure as its first non-family CEO, Myerson transformed the company from a precarious financial past into a healthy, growing, and best-in-class enterprise focused on urban office properties with assets on both coasts. Myerson launched a successful growth program and leveraged the company’s capital through the formation of successful partnerships with a long list of quality partners such as Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Brookfield, Blackstone, Ivanhoe Cambridge, Callahan Capital Partners, Mitsui Fudosan, Build Inc., and Himmel-Meringoff Properties.
Myerson was previously president and chief executive officer of the Bailard, Biehl & Kaiser Real Estate Investment Trust, a private REIT with a diversified national real estate portfolio. Prior to that she worked for NeXT Computer, Inc., of Redwood City, California. Myerson joined NeXT from Metropolitan Life Real Estate Investments, holding positions in Boston, New York City, and Northern California where she managed all aspects of real estate investment and finance. Previous to that, Myerson worked for a CDC running a community economic development program; and before that she ran a state-wide community economic development program for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Myerson is on the Board of Directors of Boston-based Berkshire Group, a national, vertically integrated multi-family and senior housing investment company. She currently chairs the Compensation Committee. She recently joined the Real Estate Advisory Board of Mosaic Real Estate Credit, LLC. She is the office product expert providing strategic and due diligence guidance to Mosaic’s investment fund, which is focused on high quality, high yield and secure fixed income investments.
Myerson is on the Build, Inc. Advisory Board. She provides strategic product innovation and capital markets guidance to this San Francisco-based private, multi-family development company.
Myerson retired from the Board of Directors of NYSE-listed BRE Properties, Inc. on April 1, 2014 after 12 years of service and following the successful merger of BRE with Essex Property Trust (ESS). During her tenure on the BRE Board, she served on all the board’s committees: Audit (during the implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley), Nominating and Governance, Compensation, and as the chair of its Real Estate Committee.
Myerson serves on the Board of SPUR, a non-profit Bay Area organization dedicated to thoughtful urban planning and policy discussion, is a member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI), and is active in Lambda Alpha, a land economics organization. She also serves on the Northern California Advisory Committee of Presidio Bank, a California community bank.
She is also a founding member of the board of directors, and Treasurer of Build Public (buildpublic.org), a San Francisco non-profit dedicated to innovative public place-making and stewardship.
Among numerous honors, Myerson was recognized in 2009 by the San Francisco Business Times as the Most Admired Private Company CEO in the Bay Area. She has also been annually recognized as one of the Most Influential Women in Business in San Francisco and the Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times (1999-2011) and was subsequently named “Forever Influential” in 2012. In 2011, Myerson was named to the Women of Influence in Real Estate’s Hall of Fame. Real Estate Forum named Myerson to its National Hall of Fame in 2014.
Myerson received her BA with Honors from Grinnell College where she majored in Anthropology and Spanish and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa as a junior. She graduated from Harvard University with a Master in City and Regional Planning (MCRP).