Fred Leffel was founder and president of Kaufman New Ventures, the value-add division of the Kaufman Organization, from 2009 – 2019. During his tenure, KNV was a pioneer in the redevelopment of commercial office buildings in the Union Square, Madison Square and Flatiron submarkets. Prior to KNV, Mr. Leffel spent 6 years as an executive at Granite Partners (now Savills), an investment sales broker specializing in institutional real estate, and a dozen years in real estate investment banking at CIBC Oppenheimer and Drexel Burnham Lambert. A lawyer by training, Mr. Leffel practiced law at Weil Gotshal & Manges and Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison. He holds a BA with distinction from the University of Virginia and a JD from The Cornell Law School, where he served as an editor of the Law Review.