When Harvard University awarded Tishman Speyer the rights to develop a $1B mixed-use project on land it owns in Boston, it came with a condition, a rarity for a private real estate deal: at least 5% of the equity in the project had to come from people of color. It is the exact type of scenario the firm had in mind when it hired Joe Ritchie as its head of diversity and inclusion last year, and the deal is now emblematic of how the global development giant is anchoring its approach to diversity and inclusion. “It's an example of how we can inject diversity into our projects in multiple ways at multiple levels,” Ritchie, who is also managing director for business development, told Bisnow in an interview this week. The 14-acre Enterprise Research Campus in Allston will feature life sciences space, housing, and a hotel and conference center. Tishman Speyer raised $500M for the 900K SF first phase, and from that some $30M came from individual Black and Latino investors — higher than the 5% goal — and $800K from white women. For Ritchie, this approach is what he describes as the “market-facing application of diversity” — and one he hopes will be replicated across the company.  “In order for diversity to be durable, in order for it to maintain a focus, we have to make it a business priority,” he said. “When we can shift the conversation from diversity being the quote-unquote ‘right thing to do,’ from it being a quote-unquote ‘moral obligation,’ to it being a business priority, then we can have lasting impact.” Ritchie is just one of a new class of chief diversity officers and heads of DEI in commercial real estate, a group of people who have taken on new responsibility and visibility in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in 2020. They are tasked with implementing policies that can be treated with skepticism by their colleagues, and many of them don’t stay in the job for long. Read the full story here. | 
