See which real estate leaders made this year’s class of 40 under 40
Each year, Crain’s 40 Under 40 program recognizes the young leaders taking our region to new heights. These notable names in Michigan’s real estate scene were among the 2022 winners.
Blake Kolo
Executive Vice President, Chief Business Officer and Head of Investor Relations, United Wholesale Mortgage
Blake Kolo, a graduate of Michigan State University, was attracted to the growth he saw at United Wholesale Mortgage. He joined the company as the chief business officer, taking on investor relations duties when the company went public. Kolo wants UWM to be the No. 1 mortgage originator in America, something he expects to happen by the end of this year. Now, it’s second only to hometown rival Rocket, Kolo said, and with UWM focused on expanding the broker network for mortgage originations, and refinancing down, he said the effort is well underway.
View the full list and profiles of this year’s 40 Under 40 here.
Kyle Morton
Vice President of Development, Ashley Capital
After graduating from Cornell University and a brief stint in New York City investment banking, Kyle Morton spent seven years in Atlanta with what is now PGIM, a real estate arm of Prudential. Feeling burned out from the constant travel that entailed, he left PGIM and ended up in Detroit working for Ashley Capital, the powerhouse industrial/warehouse development company co-founded by his father, Rick, with an office in Canton Township.
Amelia Patt-Zamir
Principal and Co-Founder, Method Development LLC
Amelia Patt Zamir graduated from the University of Michigan and then Columbia University, spending a dozen years in New York City but always knowing she would return home to the region to work on development in Detroit. “I went to New York and Columbia after graduating from Ann Arbor to gain a skill set with the intention of always moving home,” Patt Zamir said. She worked at JLL, Clarion Partners and The Peebles Corp. before co-founding Method Development in 2017. The company has projects in the Milwaukee Junction, Brush Park, Jefferson Chalmers and other neighborhoods around Detroit.
Ben Schrode
Executive Vice President, JLL
After graduating from Indiana University in 2008, Ben Schrode was “scrambling for a job” during the recession. He spent some time working for an offshoot of Novi-based DeMaria Building Co. and then in Plante Moran’s market consulting group before winding up at JLL in 2012. The COVID-19 pandemic has made deals in a lot of areas scarce. Still, Schrode worked on more than 5 million square feet of them, including a 420,000-square-foot lease in a competitive market for Security Packaging in Burton.