GIS Companies began in 1992 when Igor Gershman founded the business after working in procurement for construction and infrastructure projects. The company started as an import/export firm supplying building materials, and quickly expanded into full-scope commercial construction — including the operation of its own concrete production to support remote and logistically complex builds. For its first decade, GIS functioned as a hands-on builder delivering workforce and residential housing for institutional and government clients in markets where execution was the primary challenge.

In the early 2000s, GIS was invited into its first development joint venture. That project introduced the firm to the development side of the business — not just delivery — and over the following years GIS began sourcing and executing its own development sites. That shift exposed a structural reality of the real estate industry: landowners routinely transfer most of the upside to developers simply because they lack a development team, not because they lack opportunity.

By the mid-2010s, GIS began working directly with landowners as a development partner rather than a buyer or competing developer. The pivot was philosophical as much as financial: development value should accrue to the landowner, not disappear at the closing table. What most owners are missing is not capital — it is execution.

Today, GIS operates as an outsourced development team for owners and family offices. The owner brings the land (and ultimately the capital stack); GIS brings feasibility, entitlement strategy, project packaging, capital readiness, team assembly, preconstruction leadership, and oversight through delivery. Capital raising remains a key scope of GIS’s engagement. Compensation is performance-based, reflecting execution rather than capital contribution.

The firm remains intentionally lean and principal-led, bringing in the right specialists per project instead of carrying permanent overhead. Clients hire GIS because they want institutional-grade development capability without building an internal department.

We exist to solve a simple inefficiency in the market:

Owners shouldn’t have to sell their land to developers to unlock its value — they should be able to develop it themselves with the right execution partner behind them.