Frank Nardozza, Chairman & CEO, REH Capital Partners interviewed by Lan Elliott

A distinguished advisor to senior lodging leaders for many years, Frank describes how he utilizes his intellectual curiosity to deepen his knowledge on many subjects and leverages that to develop and nurture his extensive network.  He discusses how he prepared himself financially and mentally to take a major risk when starting his own firm, and he explains how to advocate for oneself.  He also shares why it’s important to set your life priorities and to follow through.

Transcript

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Lan Elliott 0:00

Hello and welcome to D E I advisors. My name is Lan Elliott On behalf of d e I advisors and today I am really pleased to have Frank Nardozza, the chairman and c e o of r e h Capital Partners, which is a company that provides strategic advisory services to real estate and hospitality industries. Welcome, Frank.

Frank Nardozza 0:20

Oh, thank you Lan. And welcome. Thank you for your welcome, and I'm pleased to be here.

Lan Elliott 0:25

Thank you. So sometimes people wonder how we select the people that we interview. And for those out there who don't know, Frank is actually the reason that I've spent the last 30 years in the real estate business. He gave me my first break into real estate consulting when I was out of school, graduated in a recession, and Frank hired me for my first real estate job. And and the next real estate job that I found was because of work that he had me doing and inspired me to do really happy to have you here,

Frank Nardozza 0:53

Frank. And Lan was stellar, so she was there was no risk in that hire.

Lan Elliott 0:59

Thanks, Frank. So Frank, I've known, I know you've had a really interesting career journey. Can you share some of the inflection points in your successful career and if there was a factor or factors that contributed to your success?

Frank Nardozza 1:14

First off it's probably worth mentioning that when I first went to school I thought I was gonna become a lawyer, and so I started majoring in political science and government. And then I guess it was my sophomore year in college, my roommate came home and said, Hey, I just got back from an interview with a whole bunch of. Or with a few partners from this firm called Pricewaterhouse. I'd never heard of that firm before, and this is back in the seventies. And he said the average partner was making $100,000 a year. So that sounded, so in today's dollars, that's probably a million a year. So I said, you know what, I'm gonna go take some of those accounting courses. And so I started doing that and. So I ended up so that was the first inflection point in my career. I switched majors and majored in accounting with a minor in government. And I ended up being hired by one of the predecessor firms to what's now known as the Big four, the predecessor firms, to what is now known as kpmg. And so in the inflection points, starting in my career, the first thing that happened, I started out in the accounting and audit area of that firm, and one of the first things, the first day I arrived, they said, okay, we're gonna spend a couple hours on orientation and then we're shipping you off. This, I started my career in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and they said they were gonna ship me off to Orlando to work on their largest client, which was Gulfstream Land and Development. It's subsidiary, Belaire Homes, the largest home builder and community developer in Orlando. So right away, my first assignment was in real estate. So there we go. Here's the start of real estate. And so in those big firms back then, once you worked on the first assignment in a particular industry, then the next opportunity that came up in that industry, Everyone wanted the person to work on their job that already had some experience. And so I started with Gulfstream Land and Development, and then I was working on general development and a whole bunch of construction companies, and it was there, I went into the real estate industry, but I was still in the accounting aspect of it. Then we had a client of our London office. I remember the gentleman's name. It was Norden Nanjie. And he was going to start developing hotels in Orlando and he was going to do it on international drive, so they needed advisory assistance and helping them get set up in the United States to. Start working and trying to figure out how to be a hotel in Orlando. And this was in planning for the opening of Epcott Center. So I raised my hand and I said, you know what, that's close enough to real estate. And I always was curious about hotels. I even worked in a hotel when I was in high school and college doing. Busing and the restaurant and other things. So I said, you know what I'm gonna, I wanna do that. So I did that and it turns out that the assistance that they needed was beyond traditional accounting. And it was more advisory, business advisory. So another inflection point. I went from real estate to hospitality, and now I'm in a segue into, Advisory. So I was doing market assessments for them. I was helping them figure out what the business setup is, how to set up their company. I was helping them think about what the market segments are, how they can capture business from Disney and Disney tourists. So that was very interesting. And so those two events, just working in the accounting and audited area and then focusing now on real estate and hospitality, that was the start of my career as an advisor in real estate and hospitality. And then what are the factors that contributed to that success? I would say first off is soaking in as much knowledge as I possibly could. Could do in areas that I was interested in, that being real estate and then hospitality. And also part of the success was being able to help clients solve their problems. Understanding what the client's issue is, trying to figure out either did I have the resident knowledge or could I bring to the table the resident knowledge to work through their issues? And also I. Learning early on that if you want something, raise your hand and ask for it, and possibilities are that you'll get what you want. If you don't raise your hand or you don't ask for it, nobody's gonna know what you want. So those were some of the factors that contributed to my success and to carry that story further. Then of course, we went through a number of mergers and acquisitions. With the firm now known as K P M G, and so I eventually ascended to become the Global Head of Real Estate and Hospitality Consulting For K P M G, we took the consulting division public and a public in an initial public offering. It was very fortuitous for me being one of the founding shareholders of this consulting company. And so I got a boatload of shares in this company. And then at some point when I could sell those shares, several partners, and I decided, why don't we go launch our own platform, which is my company today called r e h Capital Partners. So that's a long-winded way of talking about inflection points in my career and the successes of curiosity, raising my hand, absorbing knowledge and really Using that knowledge to ascend through the ranks and to help clients as their advisor. Yeah.

Lan Elliott 7:37

I really love the themes that you mentioned, being curious about different areas and volunteering and asking for opportunities because you definitely won't get the opportunities you don't ask for. Sometimes you'll get some, but you won't see all of them. And then the other part, being a sponge because that's such a big part of it. And using your natural curiosity to help with that. Exactly. Frank. So oftentimes when we start working, we get into our career and we discover that there are new skills that you have to learn that you didn't know you were going to need earlier in your career. Was there a skill that you discovered that you needed to work on at midway point through your career, for example, that you had to develop in order to continue to progress?

Frank Nardozza 8:20

I'd say that land, that's an easy. Answer. Given that I was in one of one of the largest professional service firms in the world, and that, that skill would be networking. So early on in my career, I was doing networking internally within the company and doing some networking externally, but I realized that I had to take networking to the whole next level. I had to take, I had to basically perfect networking on steroids. Meaning if you want to succeed in one of these large professional service firms, it's incumbent upon you to be able to network in your industry, in your community to expand the client base of that firm, to bring in new clients to sell add-on services to existing clients. To deeply penetrate and radiate into your client's businesses and meet and network with as many people as possible. So I would say one of the things I learned is that networking is not just something that one might do, but it's a necessity to succeed, particularly in a large professional service firm. And I found that throughout my career, networking has become, The hallmark of my career and success in my business. The other thing I learned, let's say at the midpoint of my career was that it was critically important to delegate work to superstars like Land Elliott, who joined me when I hired her and others in the practice, so that I could then develop the next generation of professionals, train them. Let them let them grow in their capabilities to handle work assignments and the likes. So delegating and training was the other thing I learned that was a necessity.

Lan Elliott 10:25

Yeah, I think both of those things are so important because you think when you get into your role, you have to be really good and knowledgeable and have the technical knowledge and be able to write reports and present to the clients. But really there is this pivot as you get more and more senior, you need to be selling work, developing your network to do that, and then maybe pulling back from the work so that you can be selling more work and also allowing other people to develop new skills. So

Frank Nardozza 10:50

that's exactly right.

Lan Elliott 10:54

So Frank, you don't get to where you are today without taking some risks. And I know when you left K P M G after I think 25 years and started r e H in 2001, that was a pretty big risk. Can you share how you prepare yourself mentally to take a chance on something?

Frank Nardozza 11:13

LAN you're exactly right that was a huge risk here. I was making a huge sum of money. As a partner and shareholder in this big professional service firm, one of the biggest in the world, and here I am thinking, okay. I've always wanted to launch out into my own platform, my own company, so to go from stability and financial asurity of salaries and income to go to a startup. Where I'd probably initially be having to invest money rather than be paid money or salary or income. That was a huge risk. And at the time I had my, my two children Marie and Paul were, let's say in middle school. I think they were maybe anywhere from 12 to 14 years old. And so I had a family to support and so to prepare for taking this risk, of course I did the normal things that one would do. I. Financially to make sure my ducks were in a row. I, for example, I paid off the mortgage on my house. I made sure I had my I bought out a lease on a car. I, I made sure I had ample cash and working capital to get started. And so I did all those type things to prepare myself. But the other thing I did, Mentally to prepare for taking this risk is I visualize success, and I would say anybody that's going to take a major risk, particularly going into a new business or a new business venture, is to try to visualize what success will look like and then to get mentally prepared, I started ticking the box of all. The personal abilities and capabilities that I needed to be successful or to reach that visualized success, I took stock of myself. I knew that I had deep and extensive knowledge in real estate and hospitality, not just from an accounting or financial standpoint, from, but from a development, an operational, a business structuring capability. I had tons of experience and so I knew I had the background experience and resume to carry the day. But then secondly, I also knew that I had the network. When I was with K P M G or its predecessor, I was building relationships with CEOs all over the world, be it in real estate companies, development companies, hotel companies, financiers, investors. Private equity groups. So I had the contacts and the networks, so with my knowledge and capabilities, contacts and network. And then also bringing on board individuals into the company that had like-kind skills to succeed. Those were the key ingredients and factors that I consider to mentally prepare myself to take that major risk. I love that

Lan Elliott 14:24

you protected the downside. You paid off all your debt so that you were pretty much debt free and then really took stock and made a list of all the strengths and the abilities that you had with you and your team, and then what else do you need to bring on? So

Frank Nardozza 14:39

exactly.

Lan Elliott 14:42

So Frank, I know even back in the time that I was working for you, and I won't date us by saying how far back that goes, but you've been advising senior leaders in hospitality for many years, and you are always a wealth of knowledge and experience. So I'm really curious how you stay up to speed on all the information that's required to stay current in our industry, in the world in general.

Frank Nardozza 15:07

You said it. You're curious to know how I stayed current. I stayed current because I'm curious. Just to carry that a little bit further, I said before I'm a sponge of knowledge. I want to learn about many different areas. I'm always curious on why things are why things are the way they are, both in companies professionally, and then just general in generally in life. I wanna know what makes people tick, why they are the way they are, and how companies and businesses work. And so when I am interested in a topic, I research it thoroughly before I used to read everything I could and hard, hard book publications. And now I do all those things in goog, Google searches, searching for people on LinkedIn Reading about businesses and their websites and so forth. So I, I learn a lot about companies and clients and individuals. But then the other thing I do, and I'm gonna date myself a little bit here, as being a little old school, every day I have delivered to my house three newspapers. The Miami Herald, the Fort Lauderdale, sunset Sentinel, and the Wall Street Journal. Before I do anything on any day, I read those newspapers front to back. And I find that when I'm reading the hard print copy rather than the online version, I'm, I have a tendency to read more of the articles rather than just skim the headlines because it's in front of me. I'm touching it and feeling it. And so I, I read a lot and it's not just about real estate and hospitality. It's about politics. It's about economic markets, it's about sports that I love. It's about social matters. It's about entertainment, it's about healthcare, it's about biomed, it's about I don't know, manufacturing. So I feel pretty comfortable that. If I'm sitting on an airplane and talk to somebody cold next to me and they tell me what their business is or you know where they're from or whatever, chances are pretty good that I'm gonna strike up a conversation and not just at the superficial level, but if they tell me they're in biotech or healthcare or manufacturing, I've read enough about it. I may be maybe even invested in their industry. So I'm gonna have probing questions in. And dig further. So it's curiosity, it's research and learning. It's it's all of those things to really to make sure that I have the knowledge that's necessary to advise the most senior people in industry.

Lan Elliott 17:48

So I'm curious how long it takes to read three newspapers before you leave the house.

Frank Nardozza 17:53

It takes me about an hour. Wow.

Lan Elliott 17:56

All right. I do like to read the newspaper first.

Frank Nardozza 17:59

And by the way, for those young professionals that may be tuning in here, I will tell you that I started reading the Wall Street Journal early in my career, and I will bet that I've monetized the benefit of reading that newspaper front to back into the millions of dollars. And what do I mean by that? Because I have read an article about, A company in my industry that was about to enter a new market or somebody that was gonna develop a hotel in a particular market, or somebody who was gonna enter into a joint venture partner partnership with a private equity group. I know. And immediately, as soon as I saw that or see that I'm on the telephone or sending emails or text messages or whatever it might be, To all the people I know surrounding that particular situation to see if I can help in any way. And it's led to untold number of advisory assignments for me, both when I was at K P M G and now in my company, r e h Capital.

Lan Elliott 19:04

Amazing. I've seen that. I've seen that in action where you've come in and sold business. That was just recently in the news. So I've seen that happen. Let's go a little bit deeper cuz you had mentioned you had mentioned developing a network and. Of course the hospitality business is a lot about relationship building, and you've mentioned this earlier, that it's one of the keys to your success was developing this. How do you develop a network that suits your personal style?

Frank Nardozza 19:33

First off I'll just say how I approach networking. If I meet somebody called, I'm going to be asking, I. Probing questions based on my curiosity. I'll say, I'll start with of course, the normal things like oh pleased to meet you. Where are you from? And once I know where they're from right away, I have a relationship point where I can. Think about that geography and think about all the experiences I had in that geography, both personally and professionally. And so I'm apt to know what companies are important to that geography, what schools and universities are likely to have played a role in that person's life. And so I ask all those pertinent questions and what am I trying to do? I'm trying to find common ground so I can develop a deeper. Relationship for networking with that individual. If somebody tells me that they're, from, I don't know, Syracuse, New York, where I'm originally from, I'm gonna be talking about all those things about the Rust Belt of Syracuse, New York, and where carrier manufacturing company employed about half the city in making air conditioning units or General Electric. Chances are they had a relative working there. I might talk about Syracuse University, where my father went, where I was the defector to go to Florida State University. There's co, I'm building common ground. If somebody tells me what company they work for, I'm tending to probe into asking the follow on question. Before they joined that company, where were they and what am I trying to do? I'm trying to see if I have any individual connection points of some common person. That I know that either worked with that company or worked for that company and just to develop a deeper relationship. So that's the first thing about networking. It's not just meeting people, shaking their hand and adding them to your list of a network. It's have it's really trying to probe deeper and create common ground. Say you're developing a true relationship with that person. And then the second part of it is, To follow up. One of the things I do when I meet somebody, I immediately follow up with an email or a text message, or some form of communication. Like I just attended the NYU Hotel Investment Conference. I've already followed up with. Most everybody I met there. And I gave 'em a little pitch about why I really enjoyed meeting with them, which I really truly did. And I learned something about their organization, about the person individually. And now I'm going to follow up again. And one of the things I do all the time, and this is something for consideration for those listening in, if I see somebody I know who's quoted in a newspaper or an article, or who's received an award. Or has some sort of an acknowledgement publicly, I do something strange. I take a picture of the article and I immediately text it to that person and say, congratulations, what an honor. Or Hey, I saw your article. It was really interesting and it's attached, and in case you missed it, it was in such and such publication. And I do that all the time. I love

Lan Elliott 23:02

that. I love the idea that you use your natural curiosity, first of all to try and develop a connection, but then you follow up, you send notes after the meetings. People do a lot of speed dating, a lot of meeting people at these investment conferences, but then you follow up, and I love that when people have an accomplishment that's out there, that you recognize them and send them that note. I think that makes it really. Special. I do think, when I was first starting and going to these investment conferences, you'd have a 30 minute meeting with somebody. And the senior people would spend 10 minutes on trying to find a connection and I just didn't understand that. I'm like, don't we have 30 minutes? We need to get into the business, but not really understanding the importance of really developing that connection and kind of probing until you find some way that you have common ground and that sets the tone for the rest of the conversation. But I think it's something that people miss. I know I did early in my career, so I appreciate you explaining that.

Frank Nardozza 24:01

Very good.

Lan Elliott 24:04

Another thing I wanted to talk about was around advocating for ourselves. I think one of the generalizations is that women don't do a good job advocating for themselves, and that impacts their ability to get promotions or go after opportunities that they're interested in. What advice would you have for women and underrepresented groups that. Need to do a better job of advocating for themselves, but just aren't really comfortable doing it.

Frank Nardozza 24:31

The advice I would have is to make your professional wants and desires known. If it's just you that wants something or wants to be acknowledged or wants to climb into a position, if you know that and nobody else knows that, it's not gonna do you any good. I would say the first thing is, Start advocating for yourself by making it, by spreading the word of what your wants and desires are. How do you do that? One way that I recommend all the time, be it for students trying to land positions while interviewing or people earlier in their career, if you're, and particularly if you're from an underrepresented segment of business and. As you said typically there's some fear of of trying to advocate for yourself. Find yourself a mentor or somebody you trust, a confidant, and discuss your situation with that person. Be it in your company or outside your company. Seek advice, but if it's inside your company, let it be known that you want to be considered for a position that's opening up. Whether you wanna be considered to work on a particular project, as I said earlier, raise your hand like I did, speak up and let it be known. And then the other thing is, and this is for all of those that you know, have some fear of speaking up, be it in meetings or in other situations involving peers, both inside and outside your company. Make sure that you ask questions. I know frequently I've been told in mentoring those that have worked for me that well, Frank, in the meeting I was a little bit afraid to open my mouth because there, it seemed like everybody had such a profound point of view on the topic and I didn't wanna ask the question be, even though I didn't I didn't quite understand what was being said. I always come back and say, you know what? Chances are pretty good if you're working for my company or you're working with me. You've already proven that you're, that you have knowledge that you're intellectually advanced, that you're smart, that you understand and grasp things. And so don't be afraid to ask questions cuz you could be one of the smartest, if not the smartest person in the meeting or the room. The other thing, and this is something that I keep with me, right to this day, and this is playing into advocating for ourselves, is the fact that if somebody in a meeting is talking about a topic, and if I don't understand what they said, I. I'm gonna stop and stop them in their tracks and raise my hand and say, you know what? I think I understood what you said. Here's what I thought you under, here's what I thought you said, but I need, I seek some clarification cause cuz I didn't fully understand it. And I find that nine times outta 10 if you're sitting in a room and somebody said something and you didn't grasp what they're saying or you didn't understand the direction or the concept. Probably the majority of the other people in that meeting or in that room also didn't understand it. And the worst thing that can happen to you, and this is getting off a little bit of the, on a tangent of advocating for ourselves, but it relates, is to say that you need to ask the questions and speak up because if you didn't understand a direction that was given to you or understand the meeting takeaways. Then you're probably not gonna follow through. And if you don't follow through, that's disaster. Yeah. So if you didn't understand the direction, if you didn't understand the takeaway from the meeting, so don't be afraid to ask the questions, just don't be afraid to advocate for yourself. Make sure you ask the questions, and also add, ask the questions that. Are a backdoor way of advocating for yourself, showing people you're interested in a new position or a new project or whatever it might be.

Lan Elliott 28:52

Yeah. That can be scary to raise your hand to do that, but there's only one way that people are gonna know that you're interested in something as if you tell them.

Frank Nardozza 28:59

That's right.

Lan Elliott 29:02

Let me switch a little bit over to work life harmony if there's such a thing. Because despite leading a national practice at K P M G and you had clients from around the world, I know you were flying internationally a lot, you always protected your family time. You were present for your. Children's key events, and that honestly wasn't typical for men to do in the nineties, to be honest. It was much more a thing of everyone just worked as many hours as they could and that's how they proved that they were valuable to their company. But how do you main, how do you maintain work-life harmony and how have you done it? Because you have a wonderful way of protecting time with your family and with your kids.

Frank Nardozza 29:44

I would say that, It boils down to setting priorities just like you set priorities for work and business. I would say it's equally important, if not more important to set priorities in your life and your family to make sure you maintain that work-life balance. And I will tell you, just you said it, I was bouncing like a ping pong ball from continent to continent. I was working at Singapore Mainland China, Europe. South America, when I was, particularly when I was with K P M G, but also even with my company today, and I did extraordinary things to make sure that I was there for that dance recital for my daughter or her soccer game, or my son's baseball game, or the award they were receiving in school or graduation or just. Things that, family, events, holidays, whatever it might be. Same thing with my wife. What was important to her and set that as a priority. So I would book a red eye to get back where I was living in Florida, and by the way, I was my, my I, when I was with K P M G, I was assigned to the office in New York City and I was working in Florida and also maintained an office in Miami just as a. Courtesy office at K P M G afforded me, but my office was at 3 45 Park Avenue, so I was bouncing all over the place, but I'd get on a red eye from California to Fort Lauderdale or Miami so that I could be there for that event that may take a day or two and then fly right back to wherever I was in the client situation. I, I did the same thing when I was overseas. So I went through great lengths to. To fulfill those priorities that I set for life, for the life balance side of it. So I would say it's very important. Set the priorities as you set it for work. Set your life priorities and make sure you follow through on it.

Lan Elliott 31:48

That's wonderful. I love the way you've stated that. As I suspected, we are getting to the end of our time together, so I'm gonna do two quick questions for you. The first one is advice to your younger self. What would you want younger, Frank nor Doza to know?

Frank Nardozza 32:08

The first thing I would say I would tell myself back when I was 22 years old that no matter what you want in life, You can achieve it no matter how farfetched the goal may be. If you told me when I was sitting on the steps of the business school at Florida State University, just watching the people walk by that someday I would ascend to be the global head of Real Estate and Hospitality Consulting for K P M G or beyond that be inducted into the Florida State University College of Business Hall of Fame. I would say you were smoking something funny. Nobody ever told me, Frank, you can, if you put your mind to it, you can achieve all these things. So I wish I would've had people tell me that earlier on so that I maybe could have advanced even quicker than I did. And also, just somebody should have told me earlier on that networking is not just, as I said earlier, shaking somebody's hand. But going deeper to develop relationships. Relationships that you can count on, that you can leverage both personally and professionally. So tho those would be the two things would be set your goals high, no matter what background you came from, no matter how modest the means of your family. When you entered into your professional life, which is the case with me, I came from very modest means of a family that, just got by. I worked my way through school paid my own way, worked two jobs while I was in college. But, it would've been great if somebody said, Hey, Frank, you could be the CEO of some company if you really put your mind to it, or whatever other goal there was. Wonderful.

Lan Elliott 34:00

One last question for you Please, cuz you've shared a lot of really wonderful advice during our conversation. Do you have one final nugget? One one. One more piece of advice for women and underrepresented groups that are looking to advance their careers.

Frank Nardozza 34:16

One piece of advice. I am gonna cheat and break that down into a couple pieces, but do not underestimate your own personal abilities because they're far greater than what you think they are. I find that underrepresented female or underrepresented populations moving into business, they have this fear of the imposter syndrome. Where they feel they're there, but they don't belong there, and they have to prove that they belong there and they even have self-doubt whether they belong there. Don't have that self-doubt. Take stock of your own abilities. Do not underestimate your abilities. I'll say that again. Do not underestimate your abilities. The other thing is, and I already said it, but ask what you want for, raise your hand. If you don't ask for it, you're never gonna get there. And I think I said earlier particularly for underrepresented latch onto a mentor or a confidant that you can seek advice and let them know what you want outta your life or your business priorities, and use them and leverage them to achieve what you want out of business or outta life. Wonderful.

Lan Elliott 35:36

Thank you. Thank you so much, Frank. I really appreciate it and as I knew we would run out of time. But I do appreciate your time and you've offered such wonderful advice for our viewers and I hope for our viewers, if you've enjoyed this interview with Frank, you'll join us on our website, dei advisors.org for other wonderful interviews.

Frank Nardozza 35:57

Thank you much. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me land. Thank you so much.