Joel Picket
Chief Executive Officer
Gotham Organization

Joel I. Picket currently serves as Chairman of Gotham Organization, Inc. and led the Company from 1966 to 2018 (In 1998 his son, David L. Picket, became President of Gotham’s development arm, leading that division and succeeding Joel as CEO of the Company in 2018). During his tenure leading the fourth-generation, family-owned development and construction firm, Mr. Picket has built Gotham into a leading real estate developer, as well as one of the largest privately-held construction contractors in the country. With the completed construction of more than 30,000 residential units in the New York metropolitan area, Gotham has created lasting impact on New York City, crafting a legacy for Mr. Picket that is woven seamlessly into the urban landscape.

In 2015, Mr. Picket created an alliance with Gilbane Building Company, transferring third party construction contracts to Gilbane, while focusing Gotham on its own development, ownership and construction businesses. Mr. Picket served as Vice Chairman of Gilbane Building Company, in addition to his activities at Gotham. Mr. Picket began his career working on government-assisted housing construction and hospital projects. He soon expanded Gotham’s reach to other sectors, including the construction and development of hotel, commercial, medical, educational, retail and residential properties throughout the New York metropolitan area and Washington, D.C.

Mr. Picket’s experience encompasses a breadth of government programs commencing with the Mitchell-Lama program, HUD-financed projects including 221 D-3, Section 8 and J-51, and working with not-for-profits on over fifteen 202 developments. He also completed some of the initial 80/20 projects, dating back to the mid-1980s.

Mr. Picket has been actively involved in various real estate trade organizations; he is a member of the Board of Governors of the Real Estate Board of New York – after a long tenure as a member of the Executive Committee and Treasurer – as well as a member of Lincoln Center’s Real Estate and Construction Council, a former director of the National Housing Conference, and former member of the Board of Directors of the Building Contractors Association. He is also a former director of the National Housing Conference, and former member of the Board of Directors of the Building Contractors Association.

A longtime supporter of the arts and cultural institutions, Mr. Picket serves as Board Member and is on the Executive Committee of the New York Philharmonic, New York Historical Society and Richard Tucker Music Foundation, and has served on the Board of Park Avenue Armory and the Foundation for the National Archives.

Mr. Picket is also committed to the support of higher education and advances in healthcare, currently serving as a Trustee Fellow of Fordham University and the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee of the Mount Sinai Health System. Among others, he served as a member of the Board of Overseers for Albert Einstein College of Medicine, as Vice Chairman, Board of Trustees of Continuum Health Partners, as Board Member of Fordham University, and on the Advisory Council of his alma mater, Cornell University, as well as Cornell’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum.