Red Cedar’s Jon Grabowski Featured As Charlotte Business Journal’s Most Admired CEOs
February 17, 2025
Red Cedar Capital Partners is a residential land developer and homebuilder based in Charlotte that services the Southeast. The family of Red Cedar companies is now at nine, including divisions in land development, homebuilding, commercial construction and brokerage services.
Describe your leadership style or guiding philosophy and how you put that into action within your organization: My job is to provide the vision for Red Cedar and give my leadership team the runway to fulfill our goals. I believe in hiring the best talent in our industry and surrounding myself with people smarter than me to inform my decision-making. Communication is key, and since I’m a dreamer and deal chaser, I surround myself with people who will tell me “no.” I already want to take the deal or expand to a market — I want my team to tell me why we shouldn’t and trust their opinions.
Describe a difficult decision or major change you’ve made as the leader of your company over the past year, how you handled that and how it impacted the business: As Red Cedar has grown from 20 employees to over 100 in the past two years, we now have a C-suite and management team capable of making more informed decisions for the business than I can as an individual. This has meant personally giving up some control and autonomy within Red Cedar, but in turn I now have more time to work with our leadership on growth objectives and finding new opportunities for our clients and investors.
Describe your top accomplishment of the past year: We had two major accomplishments this year. We purchased a builder in Greenville, South Carolina, as our first homebuilder acquisition outside of Charlotte. Red Cedar had operated in Atlanta, Jacksonville and Raleigh as a developer and to service our built-to-rent clients, but our move into Greenville was specifically to grow our homebuilder division. We think we’ll be a top-five builder in the Greenville market within three years with the acquisition. In Charlotte, I’m most excited about the opening of our brokerage in South End. Red Cedar Realty has existed since 2015 to service our builds, but we’re adding a retail presence at 1710 Camden Road, right on the Rail Trail, to highlight our for-sale and rental communities.
What is the top priority for Charlotte to ensure a strong business environment? Our political and civic leaders have done an excellent job making Charlotte a business-friendly and family-friendly city. In housing, we see firsthand why families move to Charlotte and where they are moving from. Career advancement and moving to Charlotte for a better quality of life are the two most prevalent relocation reasons we see.
What was your first job, and what is one lesson you carried forward from that? My first job at 16 years old was painting fire hydrants in Philadelphia for the local water and sewer authority. For the first week, I don’t think I took the job very seriously but I took the interest of a gentleman who had worked for 30 years in a similar position. Over the summer I learned that he never finished high school, put three children through college, and woke up at 4 a.m. each day to operate sewer and water facilities. Two lessons from that experience — get up at 4 a.m. each day, because you can control your own work ethic, and take pride in the work that others overlook. That’s the definition of grit.
Who inspires you, and why? Without a doubt, my wife and children inspire me. I have five children, and nothing motivates me more than my early mornings to set my day, so I have time with them in the evening and weekends. It’s hard to find the balance between owning a business and home life, but I have always wanted my children to witness my work ethic so they could have an example to follow in whatever careers they pursue.
What is something you do for fun? I recently joined the Intown Golf Club in South Park. We jokingly call it “the arcade” — but with a busy work/home schedule, it’s hard to find four hours to play golf right now. In 60 minutes I can meet colleagues, friends, and even my wife and kids and hit the links on a Sunday.
What is one of the best books you’ve read recently, and why? I just finished Unreasonable Hospitality, by Will Guidara, who owned Eleven Madison Park in New York City. I think hospitality books, because of their focus on service and the customer experience, apply very well to the homebuilding business. We have built a culture at Red Cedar where our customers and employees come first, and to achieve this, you must adopt a service culture and mindset.
What is your best advice for future leaders? Be bold and decisive. A decisive leader instills confidence in people and confidence is motivating. By being bold, we keep things exciting — it challenges our team to think outside the box and find creative solutions.
