At the desk of: Eli Elefant

From the June issue: It’s no surprise that Eli Elefant’s office is headquartered at 452 Fifth Avenue. That’s because Elefant is the CEO of the Israeli firm Property & Building Corp.’s U.S. division, which bought the tower in 2010 from HSBC in a $330 million sale-and-lease-back deal. The tower, which PBC USA spent millions renovating, is the company’s crown jewel. Still, Elefant’s office is surprisingly small and spartan for that of a major property company’s CEO. But Elefant is a former army officer, and much of his office decoration is memorabilia from his time in the Israel Defense Forces. Born and raised in Israel, Elefant, 39, joined PBC in 2014 from Michael Ashner’s First Winthrop Realty Trust. Now Elefant oversees a 2 million-square-foot portfolio of commercial properties across the country, and this April, he notched a major victory when anchor tenant HSBC agreed to renew its 548,000-square-foot lease at the 865,000-square-foot tower. He considers the acquisition of 452 Fifth a “brilliant” investment. “There have been a lot of naysayers,” he said. One of the reasons the property has been so successful, though, is “the amenity of Bryant Park.”