Team
Gloria Young
Gloria Young | Realtor, Real Estate Developer
650.380.9918
Gloria@YoungPlatinumGroup.com
DRE# 01895672
Fluent in: English, Mandarin, and Cantonese
Gloria uses analytical rigor, construction experience, and high-touch customer service to help her clients achieve their housing dreams. With over $350 million of homes sold, including several of the most expensive homes sold on the Peninsula since 2018, she is a trusted adviser in her clients’ busy lives. She has built from the ground up over 50,000 square feet of luxury single-family homes in Palo Alto, Atherton, and Los Altos. With work that spans real estate transactions, real estate development, and high-touch customer service, Gloria tirelessly enables her clients to focus on what is important in life – creating great memories with family and friends.
Her Columbia Master's degree in Financial Engineering and experience in media finance enable Gloria to be a shrewd counselor about the financial side of the investment in a new house. Previously a guest lecturer on Pricing at Columbia University, she brings a wealth of analytical insight to this critical facet of buying or selling a home. Tax considerations, incorporating the right investment vehicle, and setting up the right financing are part of the network of experts she brings together.
Active management of construction projects is critical to realizing the dreams of many clients. With a reliable team of architects, designers, and tradespeople, and the experience of developing $100 million market value of luxury housing in Silicon Valley, Gloria makes sure her clients’ projects get executed on time and on budget. Weekly meetings with contractors, days spent picking the finishes, and site walkthroughs are the norm, so that her clients have the security that the project is on track.
Gloria has served some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, high-tech executives, and investors. Her network of both affluent home-owners and top-notch service providers makes her an invaluable enabler of every aspect of home ownership.
Her global background (born in Beijing, grew up in Hong Kong, college in Canada, graduate school in New York) mixed with her 17 years in Palo Alto give her an understanding of what makes our community special, and how buyers from afar might become a part of it. She happily resides in the home she built in Palo Alto, where her twin boys attend elementary school.
John Young
John has deployed his Columbia MBA, experience building houses, and legendary service to help clients realize over $350 million in real estate transactions. He focuses on making real estate goals become reality for extraordinary people in Silicon Valley.
John’s function in a purchase or sale is to make life less stressful for his clients, negotiate the best deal, spread clarity, and prevent mistakes from happening. As a full-service realtor, he offers top-tier service, fiduciary responsibility, and the utmost in loyalty to his buyers and sellers.
Together with his wife and business partner Gloria, he has developed eight luxury homes in Silicon Valley with a market value of $100 million. His insight into the ease and expense of various home construction or renovation alternatives allows his clients to make more informed decisions. In 2018, he and Gloria completed the design and build of their home from the ground up in the Crescent Park neighborhood of Palo Alto, where their boys attend elementary school and where John is active as a PTA executive and volunteer.
Prior to helping clients buy and sell multimillion dollar properties in Silicon Valley, John was a venture capitalist New York City, and a producer/designer/executive at a series of venture-backed online games companies. From founding his own company to enabling the successful sale of another company to Microsoft for hundreds of millions of dollars, John has negotiated and closed hundreds of deals. He especially enjoys crunching data and authoring original analysis pieces so that he can provide novel and unique advice to his clients.
John has been an avid Palo Altan for the past 17 years, adding to his rap sheet as a New Yorker, Hong Konger, Tokyoite, and multi-domiciled Canadian. John is occasionally found debating geopolitics, playing Dungeons & Dragons, bartending for friends, and cheering on the San Francisco 49ers. Having backpacked around the world on four occasions, he understands that material possessions are just tools for life, not the purpose of it all. A home is a vessel for experiences, not the true end-goal. Shrewd financial management and estate planning are ultimately in service of a life thoughtfully lived. John offers his skills and perspectives to each client with tireless enthusiasm, helping them to achieve the results they desire.
Ashley Banks
Ashley Banks | SVP, Region Manager
650.544.8968
a.banks@ggsir.com
Ashley Banks is Senior Vice President and Region Manager in the Silicon Valley offices of Golden Gate Sotheby’s International Realty. She brings years of experience, deep expertise in complex transactions, and an engaging management style to her position. She helps our brokerage maintain a unique collaborative environment that helps all of Golden Gate Sotheby’s International Realty's clients. As Region Manager, she is a valued part of our team, providing brokerage support during our transactions.
Erik Jacobsen
Erik Jacobsen | SVP Marketing & Education
650.248.6860
e.jacobsen@ggsir.com
Erik Jacobsen, Senior Vice President of Marketing & Education at Golden Gate Sotheby’s International Realty, orchestrates successful marketing communications for the buying and selling of luxury homes. His data-driven and visual way of thinking create actionable insights and persuasive communication campaigns. Erik previously founded and ran Threestory Studio, a Palo Alto creative studio focused on the design of information. He has helped build brands in many industries, working across all media. Erik graduated with a degree in music composition from Williams College in Massachusetts.
Mary Hopwood
Mary Hopwood | Transaction Manager
408-680-8500
tc@leadtm.com
Mary has been in the real estate industry since 1998 and has experienced the full dynamics of the Bay Area market over the years. She has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from San Francisco State University and is a licensed real estate broker. She takes pride in her excellent customer service with all parties of a real estate transaction, sellers, buyers, escrow, lenders, agents and their transaction coordination team.
With 25 years of real estate experience from new construction project management, resale homes, builder track homes, for sale by owner escrows, Mary has dedicated her time to compliance and audit. California real estate is most complex and being up to date with the latest updates with laws, disclosures requirements, and risk management are crucial tasks Mary adheres to in her role. Being in full charge of the expansive documentation, from contracts to disclosures to reports, Mary ensures each transaction from start to close of escrow is 100% complete and in full compliance.
Phong Giang
Phong Giang | Senior Graphic Designer
650.847.1141
p.giang@ggsir.com
Phong collaborates with agents to create advertising and collateral to support their sales. He is an in-house employee who devotes his talents exclusively to Golden Gate Sotheby’s International Realty listings. He is a get-it-done creative/tech savvy type and clients love his reliability and quick turnaround. Phong graduated with a BFA in Graphic Design at San José State University in 2009.