Roxana Q. Girand has a full plate: She is reimagining not one but two of Westchester’s most iconic corporate properties. Over the past few years, Girand has been overseeing the re-tenancy of the former Pepsi and IBM campuses, both in Somers.
“Both are going extremely well,” Girand says. She’s working to lease the 1.2 million sq. ft. IBM property to a private, STEM-oriented high school and is building a multi-tenant and coworking space with state-of-the-art amenities at the former Pepsi campus.
Girand leads Sebastian Capital, a boutique real estate firm, which she founded in 2001. The firm is a principal in acquisitions, and also serves as a broker, lender, and finance platform for other principals. In addition to tackling big projects like the two in Somers, Sebastian Capital excels in a certain niche: “Representing families from Latin America in their acquisition of US assets and then repositioning those assets into world-class commercial, educational, residential, and retail properties,” she explains. Girand, who was born in New York but raised in Colombia and Spain, speaks English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian.
“In my office, the ratio is probably 80 percent women to 20 percent men…. I love to see up-and-coming women succeed in the business.”
Girand has amassed an impressive portfolio of clients, and her firm currently manages more than 3 million square feet of real estate in Westchester, New York City, and New Jersey. Over the past 12 months, Sebastian Capital has grown its assets under management from $300 million to more than $500 million.
Steering the firm is demanding work — Girand has a hand in everything from acquisitions and sales to managing dozens of employees. Still, she finds time to empower other women in the real estate realm.
“In my office, the ratio is probably 80 percent women to 20 percent men,” Girand says. “I love to see up-and-coming women succeed in the business.”
