Cutone joins Redgate as senior vice president, higher education

Boston, MA Redgate has expanded its senior leadership team with the hiring of Karen Cutone who will join as the firm’s first senior vice president of higher education. The hiring of Cutone reflects the continued national growth of Redgate’s institutional client category and long-standing success optimizing real estate assets to advance university mission. 

Cutone joins Redgate’s leadership team following several senior hires including Laura Gregoriadis who joined as the company’s first-ever chief financial officer and Sharon Lavery, who was hired as the firm’s first senior director of human resources and culture. With the hiring of Cutone, Gregoriadis, and Lavery, Redgate is now 35% women, a direct reflection of Redgate’s continued commitment to surpassing commercial real estate industry standards and elevating women to senior leadership positions.

As senior vice president of higher education, Cutone will leverage her 20+ years of experience in real estate planning, development and management at world-class institutions to advance the institutional mission for Redgate’s growing portfolio of higher education clients which include Simmons University and the University of Maryland. Cutone brings long-standing expertise in campus planning and development, monetization of university real estate, housing analyses, and development/renovation scenarios to her new role at Redgate. Cutone will serve as a strategic advisor for Redgate’s higher education clients, working at the intersection of the commercial and academic worlds to implement real estate initiatives that advance institutional goals and ensure long term sustainability.

Prior to joining Redgate, Cutone served as the director of real estate development for the Harvard Allston Land Company. In this role, Cutone was responsible for creating the implementation plan for the Harvard Enterprise Research Campus, a 1.8M s/f mixed-use masterplan site located on 14 acres adjacent to Harvard University. Cutone also previously served as the director of real estate development for Boston University working on strategic initiatives including the $144 million monetization and partial leaseback of a nine-building university portfolio in Kenmore Square. This produced the largest real estate cash infusion in Boston University’s history and enabled the University to redeploy needed capital into their core mission.

“I am honored to join the Redgate team and apply my years of experience in the higher education sector to help our higher education clients make strategic decisions about their real estate assets in alignment with their mission, vision, and goals,” said Karen Cutone, Senior Vice President of Higher Education at Redgate. “I look forward to working in partnership with our clients to create innovative solutions that address the challenges facing higher education institutions today, and help build sustainable, inclusive and collaborative communities that position them for long-term success.”

“We are thrilled to welcome Karen to our growing institutional client service team. Karen’s deep expertise in strategic planning, investment strategies and structuring of value-enhancing plans for higher education institutions will help guide our current and future college and university partners through critical early informed decision-making,” said Kristi Dowd, Executive Vice President and Institutional Services Lead at Redgate. “With Karen’s guidance, we will expand our current real estate advisory offerings while continuing to elevate our owner’s representation, development, and project management services to colleges and universities seeking to best utilize real estate assets to advance their missions.”