Martin Cohen is Guild Hall Chair, Alec Baldwin Voted President
Martin Cohen was voted Chair of the Guild Hall Board of Trustees and new dad Alec Baldwin was voted Board President at their Annual Meeting of Trustees last Friday, August 23. Cohen succeeds Melville Straus who stepped down after 18 years as Chair.
During his tenure, Straus oversaw the extensive renovation of the museum, theater, education center and administration offices, and spearheaded and completed Guild Hall’s capital campaign. In March he was honored for his leadership and philanthropic efforts at Guild Hall’s Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Awards.
Cohen is currently co-Chairman and co-CEO of Cohen & Steers, Inc., a global investment manager listed on the New York Stock Exchange. A Guild Hall Board member for the last decade, he is also considered a pioneer for investing in real estate through the public market. He and Robert Steers started the first real estate mutual fund, and in 1986 they established Cohen & Steers, the world’s largest investor in publicly traded real estate companies.
He currently serves as Chair of the Board of the City College 21st Century Foundation and is on the board of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and New York City’s Central Park Conservancy. Cohen lives in New York City and East Hampton where he and wife of 40 years, Michele, raised four children.
Alec Baldwin has been a member of Guild Hall’s Board of Trustees since 2011. He is a graduate of New York University (BFA-Tisch, 94) and is sort of well known as an actor.