Matthew Kwatinetz Bio
Matthew “Chef” Kwatinetz has dedicated his career to building communities and works of art that inspire. He supports artists, entrepreneurs and citizens in obtaining appropriate ownership in their own work and in the communities they create and live in.
From 2014 to 2019, Matthew was the Executive Vice President of NYC's Economic Development Corporation, in charge of the Asset Management, PortNYC and NYC Ferry Divisions. There he managed 67M square feet of real estate, one of the largest portfolios of double bottom line real estate and infrastructure assets in the world, generating over $200M in annual revenue and inclusive of the 42nd Street Development Development Project, the Brooklyn Army Terminal, the NYC Cruise Terminals, the NYC Public Markets, and the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center. In that role he managed the largest expansion of passenger ferry service in U.S. history, co-managing the construction, start-up and operations of 30+ new ferry boats, 21+ landings and over 5 million passengers within 24 months. In partnership with the Mayor's Office of Cultural Affairs, he also executed on Mayor de Blasio's promise to deliver 500 affordable artist work-spaces in NYC, the largest such program in the country.
Prior to NYC, Chef worked for Mayor Deke Copenhaver in Augusta, GA, founding the Augusta Regional Collaboration Corporation, which leveraged over $250M in investment into Augusta through stitching together diverse partnerships across levels of government and nonprofits to realize long-stalled projects in cultural workspace, affordable and workforce housing, and commercial development, including a partnership with the state on consolidating existing colleges and universities into the third research university in Georgia.
Matthew first got to Georgia when he worked with Kinzer Real Estate on site selection for a new $150M Starbucks manufacturing plant that was on-shoring jobs from foreign countries back to the U.S.
Kwatinetz is also a theater producer and most recently produced the off-Broadway hit Ernest Shackleton Loves Me which won Best New Off Broadway Musical in 2017.
From 2002-2008, he lived in Seattle, where he ran the cultural incubator Capitol Hill Arts Center (home to the legendary Burner bar Lower Level). At CHAC, he proudly produced multiple seasons of theater, music and spoken word across six years of its operation as the only social venture cultural incubator in the country. Seattle Mayor Nickels named Matthew a “Seattle City Artist” for his work in theatre. Kwatinetz was trained in the arcane art of public/private partnership negotiation by Heartland, the 35 year old agency dedicated to creating value for all stakeholders.
Matthew was recently named to the Burning Man Project Board of Directors. He is also the Chair of the Technical Assistance Program for the Urban Land Institute's NY Chapter, where he also sits on the Management Committee and is a member of the ULI National Public/Private Product Council. He is a proud graduate of The Wharton School, where he studied with Dr. Susan Wachter and worked for the Institute for Urban Research (IUR). For IUR, he did economic research for the U.S. Department of Energy as well as a consortium of national art museums. He also is a graduate of Harvard University and Deep Springs College, which provided his first experience of the Nevada desert and the necessity for eliminating the distinction between labor and intellect.