Joanne Minieri
Alumni Achievement Award
Joanne Minieri's inaugural commute to Hofstra from her home in Carnarsie, Brooklyn, was very fortuitous. "The first time I went to Hofstra, the summer before I started school, there was a 25-cent toll to get on the Southern State Parkway. I paid it that one day, and then they stopped charging."
Joanne, who graduated with a B.B.A. from Hofstra in 1982, saw this as a good start to her college career. Though her schedule as a student was jam-packed, between classes and part-time work for an insurance broker, she learned some valuable lessons from the University, the most important of which generated an interest in her future career.
"I was trying to decide what to major in," she remembers, "and I had a professor who gave me advice. I was leaning toward accounting because I guess I always had a knack for it. He basically told me that the basis of any successful business is accounting and understanding the structure and goals of a company. His words were pretty much burned into my head. That's when I made my decision to become an accounting major and that is, in fact, the basis of how I got where I am today."
Where Joanne is today is executive vice president and chief operating officer of Forest City Ratner Companies, an affiliate of Forest City Enterprises, the nation's largest publicly traded commercial real estate development company. FCRC is based in Brooklyn, New York.
FCRC has developed and currently owns more than eight million square feet of commercial property, including office, retail, hotel and residential. Their projects have included Brooklyn Commons, the Battery Park City Retail and Entertainment Complex and the MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn, which Joanne says "transformed a very crime-ridden, drug-infested area into a revitalized center of business."
FCRC is also behind the Atlantic Yards project, which proposes to bring a professional sports team - the Brooklyn Nets - to Brooklyn, as well as affordable housing, commercial offices, retail operations and a hotel.
Though it has generated some public debate, the Atlantic Yards project very much excites Joanne both professionally and as a Brooklyn resident. She says, "As COO, I am very excited and incredibly proud to be a part of what I believe to be one of the biggest moments in Brooklyn's history with this Atlantic Yards project. It is not only providing affordable housing opportunities - which frankly is the mayor's number one mission in his administration - but also to bring back a professional sports team to the area is something I think is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
"As a Brooklynite," she adds, "to be a part of a company that is changing the landscape of our city, I couldn't be happier … I am flabbergasted. I am beyond proud. I'm beaming everyday."
When asked about career advice she would offer current Hofstra students and new alumni, Joanne says, "When I look back on my own career the first thing I would share is that you have to have the ambition and drive to do well. When you have that, you inspire confidence in the people that you are working for. Then the opportunities will follow."
"I wish I could tell you I have a formula to show how I got here. But honestly I graduated from Hofstra, I used the recruiting office to get my first job in a CPA firm that specialized in real estate. And I continued to be committed to my career and doing the best job that I could do. I worked hard. And different opportunities began to surface. That's the heartbeat of how I got where I am."