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 $450 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 a market value of $100,000,000+. 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. Gloria’s expert advice also involves tax considerations, determining the right investment vehicle, and setting up the right financing.
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 19 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 public school.
John Young
John is a data-geeking, deal-making, house-building Palo Altan who has realized over $450 million in results for clients. He focuses on making real estate goals become reality for extraordinary people in north Palo Alto and across Silicon Valley.
Columbia Business School taught John how to be a data geek. He now regularly pulls primary transaction data about the Silicon Valley real estate market, transforming and interrogating it, before visualizing it to clients. He lectures on how Excel and Tableau can make Realtors stronger, and uses these skills to help clients see the market with clarity.
John is a deal maker. Prior to helping clients buy and sell multimillion dollar properties in Silicon Valley, he was a venture capitalist in New York City, and an executive at a series of VC-backed online game companies. From founding his own company to enabling the lucrative sale of another to Microsoft, John has negotiated and closed hundreds of deals, and understands the busy lives of his clients.
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 the build process helps his clients make more informed decisions.
John and Gloria moved to Palo Alto 19 years ago, where they designed and built their home in the Crescent Park neighborhood. John is active in the Greene Middle School PTA (where their twins attend) and Palo Alto Partners in Education (PiE).
A global citizen, John has lived and adventured in New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Kingston, and Winnipeg before Silicon Valley. He’s backpacked around the planet for over a year—from the Karakoram Highway to Patagonia to the Ngorongoro Crater to “9 weeks with 9-year-olds” in Western Europe.
For fun beyond winning for clients, he is occasionally found playing tennis or lifting weights, playing Dungeons & Dragons, bartending for friends, cheering on the San Francisco 49ers, gaming in one fantasy/Sci-fi RPG or another, or dating his amazing wife.
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.