CEO of Ivory Homes

Clark D. Ivory is the CEO of Ivory Homes, Utah’s Number One Homebuilder since 1988. Since purchasing the company in 2000, Clark has built on his father’s legacy of principled leadership. Ivory Homes has built more than 23,000 single family homes and 3,000 apartment homes. Instead of expanding out of state, Ivory Homes has focused on developing housing for every stage of life.

Clark graduated from the University of Utah with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 1988 and received a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School in 1992. Clark served as a director of the Salt Lake City branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 2006 to 2011, leading three years as chair. He also served on the University of Utah's Board of Trustees from 2007 to 2014, serving five years as chair. In 2009, he was chair of the Salt Lake Chamber, rallying Utah's business community's response to the great recession. He currently co-chairs Utah Community Builders, the foundation arm of the Salt Lake Chamber, and also serves on the Advisory Board for the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. Clark and Christine are committed to education and have provided more than 2,500 scholarships to students at Utah universities and colleges.

Clark is actively engaged in several collaborations to address the issue of housing affordability. In 2018, Clark and Christine established the Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability which seeks to find the nation's most promising ideas to improve affordability. Ivory Innovations, an applied academic institution and operating foundation dedicated to catalyzing innovations in housing affordability, partners with other innovators to find solutions to the affordable housing crisis. Clark is also co-chair of the Real Estate Advisory Board to the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah and previously served on the Policy Advisory Board for the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Clinical Professor at the University of Utah - Entrepreneurship

During his career Taft Price has been instrumental in the dramatic growth of a number of successful companies. Currently, Taft is exploring teaching entrepreneurship at the University of Utah through involving students in the actual operations of start-up businesses. Until recently Taft was president of TaskEasy – a dual sided market place for exterior maintenance services. As the co-founder of Oakley Networks – a security software company providing solutions for the government and corporate market, Taft provided the leadership to take Oakley from concept to revenue in less than twelve months. From inception in 2001 to the sale of the company in 2007 to Raytheon, Oakley generated more that $75 million of revenue. Oakley continues to make a significant contribution to our country’s national security. Prior to founding Oakley, Taft was a managing partner of Alta Capital Management, a Registered Investment Advisor, managing assets for institutions and high net-worth investors. During his five-year tenure with Alta Taft revitalized the firm by recruiting a talented team and growing revenue by more than 220%. Earlier in his career, Taft was vice president of Richter &Co. and Cerberus Partners, an investment banking boutique and distressed securities hedge fund.

While with Cerberus, Taft served as a member of the board of Harvest Foods and oversaw a major restructuring and divestiture plan for the company. During graduate school, Taft worked as a managing consultant for a not-for-profit firm that helped minority-owned small businesses in the New York metropolitan area. Taft and his wife Mary Jane are the proud parents of four daughters and are active in numerous civic and philanthropic causes. Taft served for six years on the University of Utah Board of Trustees. Taft earned an MBA from New York University and a BA from Brigham Young University.

President at the Colton Housing Group

Kent Colton is the President of K. Colton LLC and a former Senior Scholar at Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. He has more than 30 years of experience as a housing scholar and expert in the field of mortgage finance and housing policy. 

Prior to his work with the Joint Center and Colton, LLC, Kent was the Executive Vice President and CEO of the National Association of Home Builders, a position he held from 1984 to 1999. Before that, he served as an executive vice president of Freddie Mac for policy, planning and economic research. He was a member of the Millennial Housing Commission, and staff director of the President's Commission on Housing. 

A graduate of Utah State University, Colton received an M.P.A. from Syracuse University and a Ph.D. in Urban Studies from MIT.

Project Director, Housing an Aging Society Program

Jennifer Molinsky is Project Director of the Housing an Aging Society Program and a Lecturer at the Graduate School of Design. As Project Director, Dr. Molinsky leads research exploring the housing challenges facing an aging population, including affordability, accessibility and safety in the home, community livability, and connections between housing, services, and health. She was lead author on the Center’s major reports on the challenges of housing an aging society, including Advancing Housing and Health Equity for Older Adults: Pandemic Innovations and Policy Ideas, The State of the Nation’s Housing for Older Adults 2018 and 2019; Older Households 2015-2035: Projections and Implications for Housing a Growing Population (2016); and Housing America’s Older Adults: Meeting the Needs of an Aging Population (2014), and has also written about the role of housing in wellbeing in older age. Jennifer was also a co-editor of the 2018 book A Shared Future: Fostering Communities of Inclusion in an Era of Inequality and the 2014 book Homeownership Built to Last: Balancing Access, Affordability, and Risk After the Housing Crisis. Jennifer serves on the steering committee for The Chan School of Public Health Initiative on Health and Homelessness at Harvard and co-directs the Healthy Places Design Lab at the Graduate School of Design. Prior to joining the Center, she was Chief Planner for Long Range Planning in Newton, MA, and held positions with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Municipal Art Society of New York, Abt Associates, and PricewaterhouseCoopers’ government housing finance practice. She holds a PhD in Urban Planning from MIT, a Masters of Public Affairs-Urban and Regional Planning from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, and a BA from Yale.

Director of the Terner Housing Lab

Kara Murray-Badal is the Director of the Terner Housing Lab, an accelerator identifies and helps scale early-stage ventures that are working to make housing more affordable and fair. She brings a wealth of managerial and project management experience from both the private and non-profit sectors. She’s a proud Oakland native with a history in community activism and politics, having consulted on policy for several cities and done communications and field leadership for electoral campaigns. Kara holds an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in Psychology from Stanford University.

Managing Partner at Groundbreak Ventures

Scott is an active venture investor and capital markets professional having spent more than 15 years evaluating and supporting emerging businesses. He has worked in both origination and asset management and has experience across industries, and throughout the business lifecycle. Scott has worked alongside dozens of entrepreneurs and has provided guidance on areas including company formation, C-suite recruitment, resource planning, M&A assessment and exit evaluation. His partner-oriented approach has earned him the respect of founders. As an entrepreneur and a father, he is well aware of the support needed – both practical and emotional – to create something great.

Assistant Professor at University of Denver

Dr. Eric Holt is an Assistant Professor in the Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management at the University of Denver (DU). He teaches Construction Building Systems, Introduction to Architecture & Design Management, and Construction Estimating. He has 30 years of experience in the construction industry. His career includes construction material sales and marketing, plan reviewer and building inspector, custom home project manager, and architectural designer for new homes and remodeling projects. Eric earned his Ph.D. from Purdue University in Construction Management. He is a certified instructor for the National Association of Home Builders and teaches the Certified Green Professional (CGP), Certified Aging in Place Specialist (CAPS), and Residential Construction Superintendent (RCS) courses. He serves on the NAHB Student Chapter Advisory Board at the national level and as the DU NAHB Student Chapter Faculty Advisor. His research focuses on the housing industry around alternative building methods, workforce development, and the technology utilized in construction.

Vice President of Sales at Builders FirstSource

John Osborne is based out of Salt Lake City, Utah, United States and works at Builders FirstSource as Vice President of Sales.

M.U.D. Senior Lecturer of Architecture & Urban Design

Eduardo Guerrero received his professional architecture degree from the University The Republic in Santiago Chile and earned a Master of Urban Design degree from the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining the faculty at the University of Arizona, Eduardo practiced architecture and urban design in Chile and in California. Eduardo has designed and built hundreds of social housing units in the Atacama Desert region, designed prototypical houses for Habitat for Humanity, and selected properties for future housing developments. In addition, Eduardo has overseen neighborhood revitalization efforts in Santiago for the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning and has also worked as an urban design consultant for firms in California in both rural and urban areas. As a registered architect (in Chile) and urban designer, Eduardo’s professional and research interests include both disciplinary perspectives. Eduardo is drawn to design problems that engage architecture, urban design, climate, and culture, and is especially interested in the seen and unseen edges that define boundaries between urban, rural, agricultural, industrial, natural, and social settings. Eduardo is the host of Crossing City Limits, a podcast about the environment and culture, where he speaks with experts in the field of housing design, housing policy, mobility, urban design and more.

Academic Director, Ivory-Boyer Real Estate Center

Andra Ghent’s research interests are real estate finance, financial intermediation and fixed income markets.

She teaches courses in real estate finance, real estate capital markets, and investment strategies in property markets.

An award-winning teacher and researcher, Dr. Ghent has received numerous grants to support her work. Her research has been published in top academic journals, and she is an associate editor of the Journal of Banking and Finance.

She comes to UNC Kenan-Flagler from the business school faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was a professor in the real estate and urban and economics department and academic director of its real estate center. Dr. Ghent served as visiting scholar to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

She received her PhD in economics from the University of California, San Diego, her MA in economics from the University of Toronto and her BA in economics from the University of British Columbia.

Policy Associate, Terner Center for Housing Innovation

Muhammad T. Alameldin is the Policy Associate for the Terner Center. He brings the Center’s innovative research to inform housing policy at the local, state, and federal levels. He is driven by the desire to help every person live in an affordable and sustainable home.

Prior to joining the Terner Center, Muhammad was an Economic Equity Fellow for The Greenlining Institute, a public policy, research, and advocacy social justice organization. He led the economic equity team’s state legislative efforts in Mortgage Interest Deduction reform and supporting equitable housing policies, and he co-authored A Fair Financial System: Regulating Fintech and Nonbank Lenders.

Prior to his work at Greenlining, Muhammad communicated housing policy ideas to the public at California YIMBY and successfully helped lobby Congress to start paying their legislative interns at Pay Our Interns.  

Muhammad is a former Cal Bear, holding a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Muhammad has written for and been cited in a variety of publications, from CalMatters to The Atlantic.

Vice President, Urban Institute

Laurie Goodman is a vice president at the Urban Institute and co director of the Housing Finance Policy Center, which provides policymakers with data-driven analyses of housing finance policy issues that they can depend on for relevance, accuracy, and independence.

Goodman spent 30 years as an analyst and research department manager on Wall Street. From 2008 to 2013, she was a senior managing director at Amherst Securities Group LP, a boutique broker-dealer specializing in securitized products, where her strategy effort became known for its analysis of housing policy issues. From 1993 to 2008, Goodman was head of global fixed income research and manager of US securitized products research at UBS and predecessor firms, which were ranked first by Institutional Investor for 11 years. Before that, she held research and portfolio management positions at several Wall Street firms.

She began her career as a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Goodman was inducted into the Fixed Income Analysts Hall of Fame in 2009.

Vice President, Product Development and Affordable Housing, Fannie Mae

Jonathan Lawless, Fannie Mae’s Product Development and Affordable Housing Vice President, is driving innovation in the mortgage industry to expand access to credit and affordable housing across the country ultimately through programs designed to benefit renters, homebuyers, and the industry. Lawless leads development of test and learn initiatives to address changing market needs as well as developing other creative solutions to support lenders and services so they can better serve their borrowers. He reports to the Chief Credit Officer.

Lawless has led the development of several key Fannie Mae initiatives – including HomeReady®, the company’s flagship affordability product. He designed and implemented several programs designed to address a variety of housing issues through partnerships with numerous institutions across the country. Prior to his current position, he was Underwriting and Pricing Analytics Vice President, where he leveraged data to influence key pricing, underwriting, and portfolio management decisions. Lawless joined Fannie Mae in 2000 as a Statistical Analysis System intern in credit policy and has contributed to many teams over his tenure in the organization.

Additionally, Lawless worked with 2Seeds Network, a non-profit group involved in agricultural development in East Africa. Lawless has a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from St. John’s College and a Master of Science in finance from George Washington University.

Chief Operating Officer, SLC Department of Economic Development

RDA Chief Operating Officer Danny Walz has a long work history of revitalizing neighborhoods. He has been heavily involved with the addition of a variety of housing types, activation of public spaces, and creation of business districts throughout Salt Lake City.

Danny has vast experience with redevelopment in Utah. Before accepting the position of COO, he was the director of the Redevelopment Agency of Midvale City for 13 years, and was previously a senior project manager and project coordinator for Salt Lake City’s RDA. He also sits as president of the Utah Redevelopment Association.

Originally from Sherman Oaks, California, Danny holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Utah. He is a resident of Salt Lake City

Associate Professor, School of Architecture

Jörg Rügemer graduated with a master’s degree of architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles. Additional studies include his architectural diploma at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne, Germany, as well as meteorology at the University of Cologne. Mr. Rügemer is a licensed architect in Germany and eligible to practice in all countries of the European Union. He is an associate member of the AIA. Rügemer has taught in Germany at the University of Karlsruhe, as well as Cottbus University of Technology, where he was the chair of Architectural Design and CAD. Other assignments include the Bremen University of Applied Sciences, and Florida International University in Miami, where he served as the Director for Digital Design. He has taught traditional, virtual, interdisciplinary, and sustainable architectural and urban design studios, architectural and digital representation, multimedia and communication classes, and design fundamentals. His appointment at the School of Architecture at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where he teaches sustainable architecture, brought him to Utah in 2006.

Senior Research Fellow, Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute

Dejan Eskic is a senior research fellow at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.

Eskic is involved in housing, construction and real estate research, fiscal impact studies and economic and demographic analysis. His professional career has focused on providing the best information to key decision makers, whether they’d be local or state officials, executives of national retailers or publicly listed REIT’s. Prior to joining the Gardner Policy Institute, Eskic worked in the retail research industry where he evaluated current and future sales performance for retail sites through statistical gravity modeling reflecting market demographics throughout the Country. Additionally, he has worked on a number of public-private-partnerships relating to Tax Increment Financing, along with numerous real estate market studies and economic development plans.

Before earning a Master’s in Real Estate Development, Eskic earned a B.S. in Urban Planning, both from the University of Utah. He also serves as an adjunct professor of Real Estate Market Analysis at the University of Utah.

Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer, Frolic Community

Director of Construction and Design

Amro Al-Nimri is an architect from Jordan with 2 years of experience in design and 4 years of experience in construction in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. Amro is currently in his second to last semester at the Master’s in Real Estate Development at the University of Utah and working as a TA at the University of Utah, and an Intern with Ivory Innovations trying to find out-of-the-box solutions to the housing affordability crisis. Amro is into camping, sports, and outdoor activities, apart from his work and study life.

Director at FJ Management Inc

Principal, Blackstar Stability

George Scott is a Principal at Blackstar focused on overseeing capital markets activities with respect to investor relations, equity sourcing, debt strategy and joint venture structuring.  George has over 25 years of real estate and finance experience, raising and allocating more than $3 billion on behalf of institutional investors globally.  Prior to joining Blackstar, George was a Senior Real Estate Investment Officer at New York Common Retirement Fund where he was primarily responsible for sourcing, structuring, negotiating and monitoring equity investments with both domestic and global fund managers, joint venture partners, operators and sponsors across various property types.  Prior to Common, George was the Director of Capital Markets at Urban Investment Partners, a multifamily investment management firm focused on investing in Washington, DC.  Prior to this, he was a Senior Manager in Ernst & Young’s Transaction Real Estate Practice specializing in underwriting, real estate structuring, due diligence and execution on both the buy and sell side.  George began his career as an analyst in the real estate investment banking group at Morgan Stanley and continued his focus to the real estate sector after business school when he joined Macquarie Capital/Security Capital Group, a platform focused on capital raising and investing in real estate operating companies.

Founder, Inherent L3C

Designer, urban planner, innovator, teacher, leader and entrepreneur, Tim’s career blurs the lines between architecture, construction, development and public policy to support more complete and holistic communities. He is focused on leveraging the built environment to elevate the human condition in remarkable ways. Having lived in Abu Dhabi, rural India, New York and Chicago, with projects that span six continents, Tim brings a unique, global perspective to his design work.

He is an advocate for smart growth and equitable communities, working with leaders at the intersection of policy, development and next generation buildings. Tim has vast experience identifying new ways design and strategy

Chair, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and Professor, Cornell University

Sara Bronin is a Mexican-American architect, attorney, professor, and policymaker whose interdisciplinary work focuses on how law can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected places. She is a Professor at the Cornell College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, an Associated Faculty Member of the Cornell Law School, and a Fellow of the Atkinson Center for Sustainability. Among other visiting positions, Bronin has taught at the Yale School of Architecture and the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), and has been a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Kleinman Center on Energy Policy and the Sorbonne. Among other scholarly service, Bronin is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a past chair of the State & Local Government Section of the American Association of Law Schools. 

Bronin won several design awards for the rehabilitation of her family’s National-Register-listed 1865 brownstone. She holds a J.D. from Yale Law School (Harry S Truman Scholarship), M.Sc. from the University of Oxford (Rhodes Scholarship), and B.Architecture/B.A. from the University of Texas. While in law school, she clerked for then-Judge Sonia Sotomayor on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. A seventh-generation Texan, Sara is a native Houstonian. She grew up working in her grandparents’ Mexican restaurant.

Ivory Innovations

Real Estate

Dr. Roger Child, PhD, has spent 30 years in developing cities. His experience includes single family housing, multi-family housing, office parks, mixed-use developments, industrial parks, and ecclesiastical buildings. His experience extends across multiple states and more than 70 different countries. He has brought this international experience home to Farmington, serving 3 years on the Planning Commission, including 1 year as Chairman. He has also served 2 years as an appointed City Councilman.

Dr. Child has a PhD in Metropolitan Planning with an emphasis in Urban Economics. He has written papers on affordable housing, coauthored textbooks on planning statistics, and taught university level classes. This experience together with his undergraduate degrees in Finance and Economics with a Master of Business Administration provides him with the skillset to ensure the city is fiscally responsible and founded on good economic principles.

Dr. Child and his wife Lori have lived in Farmington Utah for 30+ years raising their 5 children in a great community

Senior Adviser at Norad - Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation

Anders Aabo is a Senior Adviser at the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation. Anders is mainly responsible for private sector engagement in the areas of food security. Anders is also working on capital mobilization strategies, including blended and innovative finance, through partnerships with the private sector. Anders has a background from private equity and venture capital and has worked for various investment funds and organizations in Europe, US, and Africa. Anders holds an MBA from University of Utah.