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The GSP Team
01
What do you do at Graffito?
I get to touch all aspects of our business, from drafting contracts and SOWs for new projects, to supporting the team on our most complex strategy + leasing assignments, to working with Melissa and Noah on our new business lines. I also take out the trash every Monday and Friday, have approval rights on all of Drew’s GSP merch ideas, and develop the itinerary for our annual food crawl.
What is your educational + professional background?
I’ve been a small business lawyer, artist/musician manager, and ran a student directory business, the latter of which I started while an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I attended law school at Northeastern University here in Boston, a truly progressive place that advanced my passion for social justice, taught me how to read a contract, and brought me together with a classmate turned business partner who first dragged me over to Kendall Square for a real estate project in 2004.
What are your goals and/or resolutions for 2025?
To be more intentional about meetings (both internal and external facing) at Graffito by better defining purpose, goals and expectations for such. And maybe even applying this at times to my non-Graffito / personal commitments too 😉
02
Melissa Castro
Tenant Relations + Partnerships
What do you do at Graffito?
My role centers on building new connections, identifying and managing small business leads, and serving as Graffito’s in-house expert on initiatives that strengthen tenant relations for our clients. On any given day, I’m out in the field, exploring new restaurants or cultivating strategic partnerships that add value and drive impact to our projects.
What is your educational + professional background?
Most recently I was the Director of Business Development at CommonWealth Kitchen, Greater Boston’s food business accelerator. In this role, I worked with small businesses and entrepreneurs who are predominantly women, immigrants, and people of color. I hold a B.A. in Marketing and Communications from UMass Amherst and an M.B.A. from Babson College. Before business school, I spent 9 years working in NYC for several digital marketing agencies focused on the financial services sector in hybrid project management and client services roles.
What are your goals and/or resolutions for 2025?
- Celebrate my accomplishments (no matter how big or small they are)
- Carve out time for unstructured relaxation and fun
- Continue to be consistent with the gym and finally be able to do 5 pull-ups this year
- My mantra for the year is: Turn my nerves into excitement. It’s a reminder to approach challenges with positivity and courage.
03
Tania Celestin
Retail Leasing
What do you do at Graffito?
From outreach to transaction, I work to support the relationships of our landlord clients with primarily local, independent operators as tenants.
What is your educational + professional background?
I was born and raised in Boston and I hold a BS in Business Administration & Management with a concentration in Business Law from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. I have a background in luxury retail, artist representation, and international travel as a former flight attendant for Delta Air Lines. The pandemic allowed me to shift gears and I worked as a residential Realtor at Gibson | Sotheby’s International Realty prior to joining Graffito.
What are your goals and/or resolutions for 2025?
No resolutions for me, but this year I want to tap into the athletic side of my fitness journey. Here’s to 2025!
04
Dave Downing
Retail Leasing
What do you do at Graffito?
I lead Graffito’s leasing practice, which includes early-stage retail advisory work through detailed lease negotiations for both Landlords and Tenants.
What is your educational + professional background?
Prior to joining the Graffito team full-time in 2012, I helped oversee the development of Watermark Kendall East, a 144-unit mixed use residential project in Kendall Square, Cambridge MA. This role offered me the opportunity to build skills in permitting, client relations, budgeting, team coordination, leasing and tenant fit-up management. I hold a BS in Business Administration from Northeastern with a concentration in Finance and Marketing.
What are your goals and/or resolutions for 2025?
I want to get my scuba license in 2025 for unreal underwater adventures.
05
Drew Katz
Creative Services + Branding
What do you do at Graffito?
I lead Graffito ID (GID), Graffito’s creative services and branding division. GID helps our colleagues and clients tell stories through branding, environmental graphics, and website design. As a photographer, I’m also busy documenting projects from the land and air. Most importantly, I make sure that there is plenty of Graffito swag available to those that want it. Oh, and I notarize things.
What is your educational + professional background?
Shortly after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design, I opened a fine art gallery in Boston’s South End. The gallery, which featured mostly formalist works heavily based in architecture and design, gave artist Shepard Fairey his first solo exhibition in the city. Since leaving the gallery business, I served as the Associate Publisher for the critically acclaimed periodical, New American Paintings, received an MBA from Babson College, and founded Creative Katz, an agency focused on creative direction, branding, photography, and creative services graphic design, for industries ranging from healthcare to hospitality. Before joining Graffito, I was Chief Creative Officer at an integrated agency offering creative services, public relations, and marketing for start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.
What are your goals and/or resolutions for 2025?
At some point this year I’m going to stop procrastinating.
06
Noah Koretz
Neighborhood Investments + Partnerships
What do you do at Graffito?
I am developing new frameworks for Graffito to work with clients and partners on joint ventures, direct investments, and other creative business structures that utilize Graffito’s unique relationships and capabilities to maximize values alignment and community impact for the communities in which we work.
What is your educational + professional background?
originally came to both real estate work and Boston itself to work as an attorney, where I became fascinated by complex neighborhood-scale development through my work on a legal matter involving some of the early-stage transformation of Kendall Square from heavy industry to R+D. I refocused my career from legal practice to project-based work in urban neighborhoods, and I was most recently the Director of the Transformative Development Initiative (TDI) at MassDevelopment, an innovative program that imbeds with local partnerships in neighborhoods in smaller, postindustrial cities to work on local small business and real estate growth. I have a BA from Cornell University, a JD from The George Washington University Law School, and a Masters in City Planning from MIT.
What are your goals and/or resolutions for 2025?
I resolve to finally put aside my dislike of waiting in line to try the North Shore Beef at Modern Butcher.
07
Johanna Loughran
Finance + Administration
What do you do at Graffito?
I take care of all of the bookkeeping and business administrative tasks.
What is your educational + professional background?
I have been doing accounting and HR for the past 10+ years, working mostly with restaurants and cafes. I started my career working for a large company in Philadelphia and then moved back to Boston and fell in love with small businesses. BA in Psychology from the University of Vermont.
What are your goals and/or resolutions for 2025?
Professionally, I would like to change my daily schedule and block time (distraction free) for certain tasks to be more focused. Personally, I am trying to drink fewer canned beverages. I have a bit of a flavored seltzer water habit that I’m trying to kick.
08
Brooke Porter
Creative Services + Branding
What do you do at Graffito?
As a graphic designer, I offer creative solutions that help define our clients’ (and our own) branding and storytelling. I specialize in creating and maintaining brand identity systems, as well as website design and development. I’m excited to further explore different types of design such as environmental and wayfinding graphics, and bring to life the unique stories of the spaces and clients we work with.
What is your educational + professional background?
Shortly after high school, I received an Associates Degree in Advanced Culinary Arts from the Connecticut Culinary Institute (I make a mean crepe). I worked in the restaurant industry for a little while, and eventually went back to school to pursue a graphic design degree. A two-year stint at Manchester Community College (CT) got me an Associates Degree in Graphic Design, and I then transferred to the University of Hartford from which I received a BFA in Visual Communication Design in 2015. While in school, I worked as a designer for three years at Sunrise Marketing, a small marketing firm in Hartford, CT. After graduating from UHart, I accepted a new job at marlo marketing in Boston, where I worked for more than four years as a senior designer and chief supporter of Drew’s candy habit. I joined the Graffito team in January 2020, and the future is wide open!
What are your goals and/or resolutions for 2025?
My top three goals for 2025:
- Become more comfortable with being uncomfortable (that’s where growth happens!)
- Get my real estate salesperson license
- Do an unassisted pull-up by my 35th birthday
09
Angela VanArsdale
Retail Leasing
What do you do at Graffito?
I assist Landlords and Tenants through the leasing process and real estate transactions. This ranges from consulting on early stage planning, merchandising and rollout strategies all the way through to negotiating details of the lease.
What is your educational + professional background?
Prior to joining Graffito, I was a retail leasing broker at Newmark Knight Frank for 5 years. Previous to that, I was at Colliers International in a similar capacity for 5 years. My focus is on urban and urban edge areas advising both landlords and tenants through all aspects of the leasing process. I am a member of the International Council of Shopping Centers and the Harvard Square Business Association. I hold a BA in economics with a minor in architectural studies from Tufts University.
What are your goals and/or resolutions for 2025?
Defying gravity.