We Create Luxury Lifestyles
Based in Westlake, Ohio, Banyan Living is the multi-family property management arm of Banyan Realty Partners. We are comprised of a passionate, dedicated team of specialists that create catered lifestyle experiences for our residents and rewarding growth opportunities for our employees. At Banyan Living, we take pride in offering a variety of best-in-class lifestyle accommodations. It shows in our achievements such as winning multiple NOAA Gold Awards including Overall Community Appeal. This award-winning service is accomplished through unique amenities, luxurious surroundings and comfortable living atmospheres combined with our outstanding customer service. You deserve to be treated with the utmost respect, professionalism and consideration. Our Banyan Living culture reflects that and provides memorable living experiences with value, comfort and residents’ needs in mind.
The Banyan Mission
Whether you’re a prospective investor or resident, it is our mission to provide the most value for your financial goals and lifestyle.
The Banyan Vision
Our vision is to create exceptional, innovative, personalized and valuable business and living experiences for our investment partners and residents.
Banyan Values
Outstanding Customer Service
We treat everyone with respect and pride ourselves on conscientiousness. Every member of our team is not only knowledgable, but approachable, congenial and accessible.
Exceptional Experiences
Imagine the most hospitable travel experience you’ve ever had; where every one of your needs is attended to before having to ask. Now picture all those needs fulfilled with courtesy and timeliness. This is the Banyan approach to our residents’ needs.
The Banyan Executive Team
The Banyan Living team leverages a strong, positive company culture as well as inviduals’ skills, knowledge and experience to offer residents superior customer service. Our team places a strong emphasis on elevating residents’ experiences, providing idyllic lifestyle amenities and addressing needs before they arise.
Phillip Philippou
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Since 1996, Phillip Philippou has developed a track record of successful real estate advisory consulting. Of particular note were Mr. Philippou’s successful string of 1031 exchange sales, purchases and subsequent financings. In addition, he excelled at creative joint venture structures, which have resulted in “win-win” situations, both for developers and property owners. Phillip’s unique family office/high-net-worth clientele have resulted in him being able to act in a unique advisory-manager capacity where he was solely responsible for the restructuring and repositioning of legacy portfolios into the modern, cash-flowing asset base that you see today.
In the past 20 years, Phillip and Banyan have a proven track record in finance, management, lease-up, renovation and repositioning of assets to optimize value. All of Banyan’s value enhancement strategies have an eye towards high overall return on investment through thoughtful risk-adjusted and tax optimization strategies.
Jean Marie Philippou
Chief Vision and Strategic Planning Officer
As Founder, Owner and Operator of Banyan Living’s sister company Banyan Consulting, Jean Marie Philippou spearheads this dynamic vision-to-reality business strategies, solutions, project management, and concept development firm. Jean Marie has a long, proven track record of creating prestigious, ahead-of-the-curve and resilient brands, concepts and companies with integrity and authenticity. Combining her sharp, forward-thinking ideas with expert change management skills, Jean Marie develops and steers the course of each vision initiative toward its successful future—for our Banyan Living partners, clients, and team members.
Joey Wills-McCrary
Chief Financial Officer
An Accounting Executive with over 20 years of hands-on experience, Joey is an adept leader with a proven track record of high-level accomplishments while performing in fast-paced deadline-driven environments. Her expertise includes project management, cash flow analysis, budgetary planning, team management, P&L variance analysis, cross-functional collaboration, and effective communication. Joey’s professionalism is further distinguished by her keen ability and established experience in managing boutique acquisitions up to multi-billion dollar real estate investments with leading-edge partners and multiple locations.
Kevin Davey
Vice President of Operations
Kevin Davey is the Vice President of Operations at Banyan Living, LLC and leads the company’s day-to-day operations, focused on oversight of asset performance portfolio wide. A veteran in the multi-family space Kevin has held senior leadership roles over the last 25 years running portfolios as large as 14,000 units. A trainer, mentor, and coach at his core, he sees each day as an opportunity to inspire his team members to think bigger and achieve greater through the consistent enhancing of an authentic company “Learning Culture”. The results are exceptional living experiences for our residents to enjoy!
Throughout his career, Kevin has demonstrated success in asset re-stabilization, lease-up, and financial performance. He drives profitability through maintaining strong occupancies, GPR improvement, and placing a high value on expense management. Results driven, Kevin works closely with field teams to establish and achieve goals by staying focused on the top 20% of work that leads to greater effect.
A native to Northeast Ohio Kevin has a breadth of knowledge of the multi-family market. In his previous roles he has gained notoriety by substantially increasing occupancies in short order, reducing expenses through lessening external vendor dependencies, and development of field teams to improve leasing and retention performance.
Nicholas DeBaltzo Jr.
General Counsel
Since 1999, Nicholas J. DeBaltzo, Jr. has been a transactional attorney focusing on corporate and business counseling, multi-family residential real estate, and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. DeBaltzo is of counsel at Dinn, Hochman & Potter, LLC. And serves as general business, transactions and real estate counsel for growth-oriented businesses throughout Ohio and Florida and represents both national and international companies and entrepreneurs in corporate and real estate transactions. He is regularly engaged in negotiating a wide-variety of business agreements as well as counseling clients in the areas of corporate governance, strategic start-up planning and implementation, minimization of risk, litigation management and avoidance of litigation strategy.
Faith Griffin
Director of People & Culture
As a forward-thinking Human Resources professional, Faith has a proven track record of excelling in creating and implementing innovative, high level, human capital management strategies.
Faith further distinguishes herself with her unwavering commitment to leading with kindness. She possesses a deep understanding of workforce dynamics, diversity, inclusion, and team member engagement, hence ensuring a harmonious and productive work environment, with decency as the cornerstone of her effective leadership philosophy.
With a steadfast commitment to fostering a positive company culture where every team member feels valued, Faith consistently cultivates strong team member retention rates, engagement and workplace satisfaction.
Faith is consistently recognized for going above and beyond to ensure that employees are treated with respect, dignity, and consideration creating a workplace where every individual feels valued.
Haleigh Ashcraft
Regional Manager
Haleigh joined Team Banyan as an on site team member in 2020 bringing with her years of experience as a Property Manager in many markets across the Eastern US. This deep knowledge makes her relatable to the Residents, Clients and Team members alike as the Director of Training and Development. Haleigh furthers Banyan’s commitment to be a thriving Learning Culture for our team members to flourish. In addition with a fully hands on approach, she supports the onsite teams ensuring that each individual location functions at peak efficiency in maintaining Banyan’s high level brand standards in all areas of Operations.
Heather Harrison
Regional Manager
Heather shares 25+ years of executive level Multi-Family experience to Banyan Living. Her diverse expertise includes Market, Tax Credit, Section 8 and 202 properties. In all of her leadership roles, Heather’s positive impact in all she does is rooted in her team work guided passion forming first hand, meaningful relationships with all residents and team members, learning about them then supporting each of their specific needs.
Heather strongly believes in ongoing mentoring, training, facilitating the career growth that results in the building of trust and confidence in her teams. “A strong team makes our strong company”.
Connie Sky
Director of Human Resources
With 25+ years leadership experience, in addition to human resources Connie has enjoyed all phases of business management including accounting, benefits, corporate training, operations, payroll, and sales. She is equally balanced between hard and soft skills, and generously shares her knowledge to support our team members. Her exceptional people skills and creativity drive our extraordinary Banyan Living company culture. In her words, “Inclusion, enthusiasm and collaboration create the spark that ignites Banyan Living, making it an extraordinary company to grow your career”.
Doug Ferrell
Controller
Doug Ferrell adds 25 years of high-level accounting experience, backed by serving as a controller in our large-scale, multi-family market for the past 15 years. As Banyan Living Controller, Doug provides keen and expert oversight to the financial health of each property within our portfolio. His insight leads to continuous cost-savings for our partners, investors, and residents.
Sandy Bickel
Accounts Payable Specialist
Sandy Bickel comes to Banyan with 30 years of accounts payable experience. Prior to joining Banyan, she was employed in the apartment management industry in the accounts payable field. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, biking, fishing and attending live music performances
