What’s the Story? With Shyam Patel

Welcome to our interview series What’s the Story?, where we will be sharing conversations with some of the most fascinating, thoughtful and refreshing marketers, brand leaders, creatives and storytellers we’ve come across. Join us as they reveal what drives them in their personal lives, the greatest lessons they’ve learned, and what they predict for the future of the industry.

We spoke to Shyam Patel, VP of Brand and Marketing at JBG SMITH, a real estate investment trust. Previously, Shyam worked as Head of Marketing for [solidcore], Global Brand Director for Marriott International, and Brand Manager for Honest Tea. Read on to discover how his mom taught him to never give up on a project, how investment banking shaped his early career, and to learn about the exciting Amazon HQ project he’s spearheading!

Let’s kick it off with something fun…what’s something most people don’t know about you?

I was an Eagle Scout. Or I guess I am for life! I have two boys, so I’m really excited to have them join scouting. I did that for 10 or 15 years in my childhood. I love the outdoors, hiking, camping…I learned a lot of fun life skills.

I wanted to quit when I was like 15, and my mom said “no, you have to finish this!” As a teenage boy I was like, “I’d rather go to the movies or hang with my friends than do this work!” But now it’s a really fun thing that I did. I’d be really interested to see if my boys stick through it. But I’m not as strict as my mom…!

Now we see where your work ethic originated! On that note, what was your very first job?

I was an investment banker at Citigroup for 6 years, so I have a very different job now than I did back then! I was right out of college; I went to NYU, so Wall Street was attractive.

I was a banker. I worked crazy hours. Then I went through the financial crisis, where the company started at like 90 cents a share, and then over the weekend something happened and we all effectively became government employees because the government bailed us out.

That sounds like a bumpy start. Did that experience cause you to change your career trajectory?

It burnt me out. I was young so it was fun, and I was in New York, but then I went to business school to reframe and rebrand myself from a financial analyst to a marketer. My first job in marketing was at Coca-Cola. I worked on Dasani and Honest Tea. Honest Tea is in Bethesda and that is what ultimately brought me to the area, when Coke acquired them. What’s cool is I was the first person from Atlanta to work at this new startup.

I led innovation and strategy for Honest Tea for two years, then went from there to Marriott, working in brand marketing for AC Hotels and Element Hotels. My Marriott connections are what ultimately led me to the job I have now.

Tell us a bit more about what you’re doing now at JBG SMITH.

In real estate there are three different verticals, Office, Residential and Retail. At JBG SMITH, I run brand and marketing, which for us is high-rise luxury apartments. I also run brand and marketing for the retailers on the bottom floor of the apartments. Then on the other side of the business, my marketing counterpart runs commercial real estate, which are office buildings.

What are you most excited about for your company’s future?

Building Amazon’s second headquarters [in Crystal City, Virginia]. We’re the landowner, project manager and developer for that entire project.

It’s going to have 38,000 employees over the next 10 years, which of course is huge! We’re building multiple luxury high-rise apartments for all the people who want to live there - we expect 25% of the workforce to want to live within biking or walking distance to headquarters, and then we’re building multiple office buildings for them. It’s replicating the size of their Seattle HQ…so that keeps me busy!

That’s so cool! So you are the marketing lead on the residential and retail portions of that project?

Yes, and the retail story is phenomenal because the area is not too exciting. But with Amazon it’s attracting all sorts of retailers. So we’re getting retailers from New York and San Francisco, we’re getting bakeries and movie theaters - like Alamo Drafthouse. It’s the biggest movie screen in the entire DMV (other than IMAX)... it’s incredible. I just watched Top Gun: Maverick there and it was amazing.

We’re opening a fantastic restaurant by the same chef as Imperfecto, which is in the West End. So he’s opening his fifth location, which is going to be a brand-new custom-made restaurant. It will have a glass ceiling and lots of windows in the middle of a public park.

The first stage [of the marketing process] is attracting people to the neighborhood through retail, and then when Amazon starts moving all their employees in this year, then living there will be more exciting, and all the apartments will be ready, and the offices will be ready. So it should be an amazing evolution for the neighborhood!

What's the most interesting fact you can tell us about Amazon's new HQ2?

A funny snippet is we’re creating the only pedestrian walkway between a major metropolitan area and an airport. It’s an avenue over the GW parkway. So you can walk straight from your office to the airport terminal. It’s like a five-minute walk!

Shyam let us know that his next big project is potty training his two-year-old son. You’ve got this, Shyam! Thank you for chatting with us.