Clear Thinking, Hard Truths: Focus On Excellence Fireside Chat Revealed

The Focus On Excellence Leadership Summit and Workshop (Oct. 27–29, Four Seasons Denver) has built its reputation on one promise.

No fluff, no theory, no double-speak. Instead, real, rolled-up-sleaves leadership learning, scenario-planning, and professional workshopping for leaders living through the toughest cycle homebuilding has seen in over a decade.

Today, we’re announcing a new agenda item that crystallizes that promise: a fireside chat hosted by Scott Cox, Principal at SLC Advisors, with Jeff Handlin, Founder & Chairman of Oread Capital & Development, and David Sinkey, Founder & President of Boulder Creek Neighborhoods. The session title says it all: “Private Builders: Challenges and Opportunities.”

This isn’t a panel of platitudes. It’s three operators who’ve made a cycle-tested career of wrestling with the capital math, the land dilemmas, the cultural traps, and the leadership trade-offs. They will talk plainly and candidly about what’s worked, what hasn’t, what’s next, and what's not.

Why Clear Thinking Matters Now

If Focus On Excellence has a through-line this year, it’s clarity.

In markets where every decision carries outsized risk—price to margin or price to velocity, absorb lots now or wait, take capital with strings or slow growth—it’s clear thinking that separates those who endure from those who exit.

Scott Cox's narrative stock in trade is a John Maeda-style simplicity, one that subtracts the obvious and adds the meaningful. It cuts through fog.

His recent TBD column, Capital, Time, and Trade-Offs: New Realities of Builder Growth, lays bare the pitfalls: too many hands in the cookie jar of institutional capital, the punishing drag of cash flow that arrives too late, and the false comfort of pro formas that work on paper but fail in practice. His verdict was blunt:

It is better to work with what is currently possible than to pine for the past.”

At Focus On Excellence, Cox will press that same sharp clarity into conversation with two leaders who embody the choices private builders face today.

The Land and Capital Backdrop

Context matters. The capital landscape that powered growth in the 2010s is gone. As John Burns Research & Consulting recently noted, national lenders have retreated from land development even as the demand for lots persists. A handful of specialized players are filling the gap, but at higher costs and stricter terms.

For private builders, that means two things:

Flexibility beats optimism. Fewer rolling takedowns, longer project timelines, and cautious land sellers demand patience and discipline.
Partnerships matter more. Whether through landowners, fee-building, or selective outside investors, the new playbook requires shared risk and sharper positioning.

Handlin and Sinkey have lived these realities firsthand. Handlin, as a land and capital strategist and developer who’s steered projects through cycles of capital feast and famine, and Sinkey, as a builder who’s reengineered his business operations to wring clarity from complexity.

From Silos to Accountability

Sinkey’s brother and co-founder Michael's earlier conversation with TBD underscores a truth many operators resist: the biggest risks aren’t always in the dirt or the debt, but in the spreadsheets. Boulder Creek Neighborhoods broke through by abandoning siloed systems and moving to a unified data platform. The result was not just cost savings or faster cycle times—it was a cultural shift.

Cleaner information, real-time visibility, accountability at every step,” Sinkey said then. “It’s having more information that allows you to identify issues and address them in a positive way.”

That’s not an IT story. That’s leadership. It’s the painful, practical work of turning culture into a system of truth, and turning truth into better, faster, smarter decisions.

The Clear Thinking Advantage

Shane Parrish, in Clear Thinking, captures the essence of what Cox, Handlin, and Sinkey will bring to Denver:

“It’s only after we accept reality that we can attempt to change it.”
“Results are a function of position. You don’t need to be smarter than others to outperform them if you can out-position them.”

For private builders, that’s the crux. Not everyone will have the cheapest capital, the fastest approvals, or the deepest balance sheet. But leaders who position themselves with clarity—on costs, on partners, on culture—can outperform peers even when the market isn’t kind.

This fireside chat will show what that looks like in practice.

What Leaders Will Get

The conversation will cut across three fault lines every private builder feels right now:

Capital: What kinds of investors, partners, and structures create optionality instead of traps?
Land: How do you source, structure, and cycle land in a market where sellers still hold most of the cards?
Culture & Operations: How do you unify your team around truth and accountability so that strategy survives first contact with reality?

Our business leader participants won’t get theory or abstractions. They’ll get stories, scars, and decision frameworks from leaders who’ve staked their companies — and their reputations — on these calls.

The Focus On Excellence Difference

Focus On Excellence isn’t about sitting back. Panels and presentations are springboards into high-energy, hands-on workshops where every leader in the room works the problems, maps the scenarios, and sharpens their plan. This fireside chat will be no different—it’s the kick-off to a working session where attendees will stress-test their own growth strategies against the clear-thinking standard.

As Parrish reminds us:

There is always something you can do in the moment today to better your position tomorrow.”

That’s the spirit of this session, and of the summit as a whole.

Why You Need to Be in the Room

Land is scarce. Capital is cautious. Buyers are hesitant. Public builders will continue, powered by their access to more capital on more favorable terms, to expand their market share and fulfill their manifest destiny. For private builders, the next 24 months will determine not only profitability but also survival and positioning for the next cycle.

The leaders who will emerge stronger are those who can think clearly, act decisively, and keep moving forward when others stall.

That’s why this session—this supergroup conversation of Cox, Handlin, and Sinkey—belongs on your calendar.

Focus On Excellence | Oct. 27–29 | Four Seasons Denver.

Clear thinking required.