This week’s ‘Five Minutes With’ features Vicki Match Suna, Executive Vice President & Vice Dean for Real Estate Development & Facilities at NYU Langone Health, whose project – NYU Langone Health, Campus Transformation – is a 2020 Awards Finalist for Excellence in Institutional Development.

Who has had the greatest influence on your career and what was the best advice he or she gave you?
A number of important and inspirational people have played a role in helping to influence my career path—it is hard to single out just one individual.

Some of the best professional advice I have received includes always being genuine to yourself and, ultimately, to your vision; and also to try to seek out a like-minded community of talented and dedicated individuals willing to work together in pursuit of a shared mission.

What qualities do you think are essential to be an effective leader?
Leaders require a clarity of strategic vision and the ability to articulate that vision to others so that they can share in it. Engagement and communication are essential, along with the ability to inspire and motivate others to do their very best work in support of collective goals. To be truly effective, leadership must also extend beyond strategy and vision to execution, guiding others consistently through a sound iterative process that encourages thoughtful analysis, refinements, accountability, and successful outcomes.

As a ULI NY Awards nominee, what makes you most proud of your project?
I’m most proud of how NYU Langone has created an environment that provides a consistent and optimal experience to support our trifold mission in service of our patients, students, and researchers. Our work was inspired by the legacy of an original master plan for our campus designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in 1949, and, partnering with Ennead Architects over the past ten years, we were able to build on key foundational principles, such as leveraging city and river views and natural light, and access to nature within a dense urban environment, while meeting the ever evolving needs of an integrated academic medical center. The result has been a comprehensive transformation in which we have been able to reimagine our future in a new and fresh way, creating a framework that will allow us to continue to innovate, improve, and grow for years to come.