Stan Ross is Chairman of the Board of the University of Southern California Lusk Center for Real Estate and Distinguished Fellow of USC’s School of Policy, Planning & Development. He is a retired Vice Chairman-Real Estate Industry Services for Ernst & Young LLP, where he was a member of the firm’s Management Committee, and former Managing Partner of E&Y Kenneth Leventhal Real Estate Group. He continues his diverse activities in the real estate industry as a consultant and serves on several boards of directors, including Forest City Enterprises and American Jewish University. Mr. Ross also serves as Senior Advisor to the Irvine Company.
Ross is widely recognized for his experience in strategic planning for real estate companies, with expertise in mergers, acquisitions and reorganizations, and the development of creative financial structures. He was involved in the initial organization of the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), a government agency that in the 1990s liquidated hundreds of failed savings and loan associations. He was a member of the Auditing Standards Board of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Ross is a frequent lecturer at various universities, accounting symposia and real estate conferences and has written numerous articles concerning real estate and accounting matters. He is a Life Trustee and Governor of the Urban Land Institute and Trustee of Baruch College, from which he graduated in 1956. After graduating from Baruch, he served in the U.S. Army. Ross was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Baruch College in 1999. He was inducted into the California Building Industry Foundation’s Hall of Fame in 2004. Ross has written The Inside Track to Careers in Real Estate, a book published by the Urban Land Institute in 2006. Stan and his wife, Marilyn, have three daughters and twelve grandchildren.