Team
The people behind every site, schedule, and lease — most of them building together long before Palace existed.
Theresa Bayer
President · Fractional Head of Real Estate
Theresa founded Palace to give growing operators the kind of real estate department usually reserved for the largest companies — strategy across site selection, lease negotiation, construction, and lease administration, without the in-house overhead. She spent years running real estate programs for institutional clients at Cushman & Wakefield and has held VP of Operations, SVP of Business Development, and Chief Strategy Officer roles. She is an active member of CREW and ICSC.
Randy McBrayer
Todd Spitzer
Senior Vice President · Transaction Management
Todd advises operators on site selection, lease negotiation, and portfolio strategy, drawing on a career in national retail rollout and asset management. He has managed multi-million-square-foot portfolios across retail, office, industrial, and mixed-use assets, pairing disciplined financial modeling with hands-on construction and capital planning. He is a licensed Missouri real estate salesperson and a past Board Director of the St. Louis Association of Realtors.
Amirah Saim
Vice President · Lease Administration
Amirah leads lease strategy and operations for multi-unit franchise and corporate clients, building scalable systems that deliver in-house capability without the overhead. Across more than 15 years with global enterprises — including senior roles at Cushman & Wakefield — she has led complex system transitions, strengthened governance, and improved data accuracy for smarter portfolio decisions. Based in St. Louis, she is passionate about community and preservation work, and enjoys travel, fishing, and hands-on restoration projects.
Travis Serpa
Vice President · Design & Construction
An award-winning retail operations, design, and construction executive, Travis has spent more than 30 years driving revenue and experiential growth for industry-leading brands — including Patagonia, Nike, Converse, Hurley, and Urban Outfitters. His work spans real estate, store development, construction management, and operational strategy. He leads across disciplines with a simple conviction: honest communication and strong relationships are what move projects forward.
Seth Hurd
Director · Growth Strategy
Seth has spent more than a decade building growth systems for organizations across technology, commercial real estate, consumer brands, and pro sports. He began working in AI in 2013 at a venture-backed startup and has since advised everyone from Fortune 100 enterprises to growth-stage firms, with organic media placements in Time, CNN, Fox Sports, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated. At Palace, he focuses on positioning, systems, and the growth infrastructure behind every engagement.
Tessa Jennings
Vice President · Construction
For more than 17 years, Tessa has led commercial real estate projects for major national clients across office, retail, restaurant, industrial, and clinical spaces. From planning through build-out and turnover, she is known for tailored solutions that add value and reduce risk — and for caring as much about making the client experience memorable as making it seamless.
Tim Elli
Vice President · Construction
Tim brings more than 25 years of experience to ground-up construction, tenant finish, and capital improvement projects. He has delivered work in urban, suburban, and rural markets nationwide, coordinating the architects, engineers, contractors, and vendors behind each one and keeping them all moving in the same direction. His focus is complex, ground-up development — from entitlements through final turnover.
Jeremy Rase
Director · Leasing
Jeremy brings more than 25 years of commercial real estate experience, most of it at Simon Property Group, where he spent 13 years in leasing managing strategic retailer relationships across nearly 3 million square feet. He has sequenced simultaneous retailer buildouts and partnered on complex projects topping $8–12 million, and today manages a national portfolio of 170 leases on the real estate team at Marathon Health. An ICSC mentor, he is also an avid homebrewer always looking to pair his next music festival with local microbreweries.
Built on Relationships
Palace wasn’t assembled from resumes. It was built from relationships.
Many members of our team have worked together for years, across multiple companies and different stages of our careers. Long before Palace existed, we had already built trust, solved difficult problems together, and developed a shared commitment to doing right by our clients.
When Palace was founded, many of those same people chose to build it together. That wasn’t because of a recruiting campaign. It was because of years spent earning one another’s trust. Those relationships continue to shape how we serve our clients today.
We believe trust is earned. We believe accountability matters. And we believe the best partnerships are built for the long haul.
Today, Palace brings together experienced professionals across development strategy, transactions, project management, lease administration, portfolio management, and real estate asset strategy, giving growing organizations access to expertise that’s typically reserved for much larger organizations.