Bringing You Back Home: Jerry Pi (BA ‘99) Reflects on his Formative Years in International Relations
Written by Charlotte Cheung (BA in International Relations and Economics, ‘27)
In Bringing You Back Home, we discuss how Pardee has shaped our alumni’s paths in significant ways that would not have been possible without their time here. Jerry Pi (BA ‘99) shares how international relations influences his work in real-estate development and his key piece of advice for incoming graduates. Jerry is the founder of Pi Capital, a private family real-estate investment firm in the Manhattan and Queens borough in NYC specializing in affordable housing and mixed-use retail development.
Why did you choose to major in International Relations?
After multiple decades in the real-estate industry, I will say that the humanities and social sciences is one of the important career skill a person needs. We work with different engineers, architects, consultants, and how the politics plays out – especially professionally, with real estate – is about understanding how different people work and realizing the different group dynamics.
I was born in New York City (NYC) – born in the Bronx, raised in Queens, and went to high school in Long Island. My parents immigrated from China, with my mother was born in Taiwan with Hakka (客家) origins. Originally an engineering major, I decided to pivot to International Relations to look more holistically at how the world works.
In the United States, everyone was an immigrant from some part of the world. International relations allowed me to understand how intergroup dynamics among and within immigrant communities manifest in urban populations. Within stakeholder management in the communities you build for, be empathetic to other people and their cause. Being in real estate, I’m in different areas in the city in which I see these ethnic conclaves. Exiting my comfort zone, my bubble, some of our properties are in middle-class, lower-income areas, which are predominantly Latino or South Asian. Studying international relations at Pardee allowed me to see things from other people’s perspectives, seeing things from an immigrant’s perspective, which is both positive and brings its challenges in terms of immigration because a lot of people come from countries in which their cultures are set in a specific way.
If you could only impart one key takeaway for Pardee graduates, what would it be?
What I’ve learned over the years is to get to the message quickly, because people tune you out. Especially with our shortened attention span, because of social media and technology, just get to the point. What Pardee does to you, is that it requires you to stand on stage, the physical act of synthesizing all the information into PowerPoint slides – it’s necessary to think through what are essential, what are not, and what are footnotes.
That’s a big thing about international relations at Pardee: it forces you to give public presentations, to get in front of people. This is a cycle: growing up, you come out of school and get a job; you want to be front facing, in front of the client, handling execution, analysis, preparing the presentations. Deck work. And then you have to give presentations. That is probably the most important skill that you’ll have: it’s to give presentations in front of 40-50 executives. When half of those executives won’t know your subject matter in detail, remember to speak to them with confidence.
Lastly, be forever curious; take risks, take chances.