RECM Conference 2022

Mr. Saul Goldstein is the CEO and CIO of ActivumSG Capital Management, a European focused real estate private equity fund manager with more than €2.5 billion of equity under management. ActivumSG focuses on asset and corporate turn-around strategies in targeted real estate sectors combining a private equity mentality with deep expertise in local asset management through a strong on-the-ground presence. ActivumSG is a leading real estate investor in Europe with an investment and asset management team of more than 70 people with offices in Berlin, Frankfurt London, and Madrid.

Prior to establishing ActivumSG in 2007, Mr. Goldstein headed the European real estate investment team advising Cerberus Capital Management companies European investment opportunities. During nine-and-a-half years at Cerberus, he helped open and run offices in Japan, Korea, Germany, and the UK. He advised on investments in real estate, real estate debt, NPLs and operating businesses in more than 10 countries. Prior to this he worked at Cargill Financial Services in Minneapolis and Tokyo.

He is a member of the European Advisory Board for the Zell Lurie Real Estate Center at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and he is a Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees for Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan.

Mr. Goldstein holds BA from Cornell University (1992), an MBA from the Wharton School, and an MA in International Studies from the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Professional Background

Ms. Gentry Ashmore Hoit is a Senior Advisor to Finback Real Estate and the CEO and Founder of GAH Real Estate LLC.  Gentry’s specialties are buyside advisory, structuring complex transactions, raising equity capital, finding capital solutions and advising companies on best practices. She is also an investor in real estate throughout the US with a focus on work force housing in the Southwestern US.

Previously Gentry was a Partner and Head of Strategic Business Development at GreenOak Real Estate, a global real estate private equity investment and advisory firm.   Earlier Gentry was a Partner of Park Madison Partners, a boutique real estate advisory firm. Gentry was a Partner at Atlantic Assets Group, a private investment company dedicated to mixed-use and residential investment and redevelopment in Brooklyn, New York. Gentry was a Senior Partner at Rubenstein Partners (while also running Atlantic Assets Group), a private real estate investment fund focused on the acquisition and redevelopment of office properties in the Eastern Time Zone. Gentry served as Managing Director of Shorenstein Company, LLC. She was with Shorenstein at the inception of their investment management business through seven funds which totaled $2.2 billion. Prior to Shorenstein, Gentry worked for Hines as Assistant Project.

Education 

Georgetown University – BA – History/Computer Science – 1986 
Columbia University – MBA – Real Estate and Finance – 1990 

Professional Interests and Activities 

• Member of Sundance Bay Advisory Board.
• Full member of Urban Land Institute.  
• Member of WX (Women Executives in Real Estate).  
• Member of the Columbia Business School Real Estate Advisory Board and on the Board of Columbia Business School Real Estate Circle. 

Other

• Gentry holds Series 7, 63 and 24 licenses 
• She is a licensed associate real estate broker in New York 
• She resides in Delray Beach, FL with her husband

Mr. Jeffrey Horowitz joined BofA Securities in April 2005 and is Global Head of Real Estate, Gaming and Lodging Investment Banking. The REGL team has offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Mr. Horowitz covers a broad range of public and private companies and works on mergers and acquisitions, public and private capital raising and general corporate advisory transactions. Prior to joining BofA Securities, Mr. Horowitz spent approximately 12 years at Citigroup where he was a Managing Director within Real Estate Investment Banking. Prior to joining Citigroup, Mr. Horowitz spent three and a half years at Lazard Frères as an Associate in Capital Markets and in Real Estate. Mr. Horowitz began his career as an Analyst in the Real Estate Group at The First Boston Corporation.

Mr. Horowitz has a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Mr. Horowitz is a member of NAREIT, the Real Estate Roundtable, and the Policy Advisory Board of the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, the Industry Real Estate Financing Advisory Council and the Board of the Urban Land Institute. Mr. Horowitz has also received the 2021 NAREIT, Industry Achievement Award.

Mr. Michael Lavipour is responsible for overseeing Square Mile’s credit initiatives and capital markets relationships, as well as sourcing, negotiating and structuring loan transactions across the firm’s investment strategies. Prior to joining Square Mile in 2013, Mr. Lavipour served as Vice President at Redwood Trust where he originated whole loan and mezzanine loans in the northeastern U.S. Prior to joining Redwood Trust, Mr. Lavipour was a Vice President in the Real Estate Finance group at Credit Suisse where he worked in loan origination, asset management and capital markets. He received his B.A. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Wilson Leung is the head Angelo Gordon’s Asia real estate activities and is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. Mr. Leung is also the Chairperson of the firm’s Diversity Council. He was originally hired in 2002 to work on U.S. real estate investments in the firm’s New York office and was chosen to lead the firm’s effort to expand its real estate investment activities into Asia. Mr. Leung established the firm’s Hong Kong office in 2005 and was based in the region for approximately eight years. He has been directly responsible for, or overseen, in excess of $10 billion of real estate assets at the firm. Before joining the firm, Mr. Leung was a management consultant for Bain & Company, a strategy consulting firm in San Francisco. Previously, he managed a small real estate portfolio for a non-profit institution. He received a B.S. degree from Cornell University, and is fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese and English.

Mr. Al Rabil is CEO of Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, L.P., overseeing strategic initiatives, operations and asset management across Kayne’s investment platforms. In 2007, Mr. Rabil co-founded Kayne Anderson’s real estate private equity platform and continues to serve as KA Real Estate’s CEO, setting the strategic direction for KA Real Estate, overseeing KA Real Estate’s overall investment activities, and leading fundraising for all KA Real Estate investments. KA Real Estate currently manages approximately $13 billion of AUM across both debt and equity investment funds.

Immediately prior to founding KA Real Estate, Mr. Rabil founded and was principal of two real estate investment firms, RAMZ, LLC and Rabil Properties, LLC, where he developed and acquired a portfolio of more than $250 million of off-campus student housing properties. This was preceded by an almost ten year stint at UBS where Rabil served as a Managing Director and Head of the Real Estate Banking for the Americas and Europe. During his tenure there he played a key role in making UBS a market leader in both syndicated debt and large loan CMBS, consummating more than $25 billion in transactions. Rabil began his career in the Real Estate Finance Group of the Bankers Trust Company.

Mr. Rabil earned a B.A. cum laude from Yale University in 1985 and an M.B.A. in finance from Columbia University in 1988.

Mr. David Sherman is Senior Advisor and Chairman of the Investment Committee at BGO Strategic Capital Partners (formerly Metropolitan Real Estate), a real estate investment management business that he co-founded in 2002 and of which he served as President through 2018. (Metropolitan became part of the Investment Solutions Division of The Carlyle Group in 2013 and was acquired by BentallGreenOak in 2021). In addition, Mr. Sherman is Co-Director of the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate and an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business Administration. Mr. Sherman has more than 35 years of real estate investment, finance and analytical experience.

Ms. Hilary Spann serves as Executive Vice President of Boston Properties and Head of the Company’s New York Region. Ms. Spann holds more than 20 years of real estate investment and development experience, most recently the Head of Americas for Real Estate at CPP Investments. During her tenure at CPP, Ms. Spann was responsible for leading all aspects of the Americas real estate business, including investment strategy and execution, talent acquisition and management, and portfolio management. Prior to joining CPP Investments in 2016, Ms. Spann held several executive roles in acquisitions and asset management in the Global Real Assets Group at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, including as the head of the northeast region for real estate. Ms. Spann is a Governing Trustee of the Urban Land Institute, as well as a member of its Americas Executive Committee and she also serves as a Director of the ULI Foundation. Ms. Spann graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a Bachelors of Science and a Masters of City Planning, both from the College of Architecture. She also studied architecture at the Ecole d’Architecture de Paris – La Villette.

Mr. Walter Stackler is the Founder and Managing Partner of Shelter Rock Capital Group, a boutique real estate private equity advisory firm that raises capital globally for funds, joint ventures and separate accounts. Mr. Stackler has approximately 30 years of real estate related experience, including over 20 years focused on capital raising for vehicles sponsored by private investment firms, real estate operating companies and public REITs. Investors have included public and corporate pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, foundations, endowments, insurance companies, commercial banks, family offices and other institutional and accredited investors. Prior to founding Shelter Rock, he was a Managing Director and co-founder of Greenhill’s Real Estate Capital Advisory group. Mr. Stackler was previously a Managing Director, Co-Head and a founding member of the Credit Suisse Real Estate Private Fund Group (“REPFG”), which he joined in 2000 at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (“DLJ”) prior to its merger with Credit Suisse. Prior to the formation of REPFG in 2000, he was with DLJ’s Commercial Mortgage Group where he focused on the origination, underwriting and structuring of multi-family and commercial mortgages. Earlier in his career, he was with the Ernst & Young Kenneth Leventhal Real Estate Group where he specialized in distressed debt valuation, feasibility studies and strategic planning.

Mr. Stackler holds a BS from the University of Richmond and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Dr. Betsey Stevenson is a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan. Dr. Stevenson is a faculty research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, a fellow of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich, and visiting Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. She served as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2013 to 2015 where she advised President Obama on social policy, labor market, and trade issues. She served as the Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of Labor from 2010 to 2011. More recently she served on the Biden-Harris Transition team assisting with the agency review and policy development for the U.S. Treasury. 

Dr. Stevenson has published widely in leading economics journals about the labor market and the impact of public policies on outcomes both in the labor market and for families. Her research explores women’s labor market experiences, the economic forces shaping the modern family, and how these labor market experiences and economic forces on the family influence each other. She is the co-host of the podcast Think Like an Economist and is the coauthor of a Principles of Economics textbook. Her analysis of economic data and the economy are frequently covered in both print and television media. 

Dr. Stevenson earned a B.A. in economics and mathematics from Wellesley College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

Dr. Shang-Jin Wei is N.T. Wang Professor of Chinese Business and Economy and Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business and School of International and Public Affairs

Dr. Wei is a noted scholar on international finance, trade, and the Chinese economy. He was a recipient of the 2019 Contemporary Economics Prize, the Sun Yefang Prize for Distinguished Contributions to Economics (for the invention of the Competitive Saving Motive published in Journal of Political Economy), the Zhang Peifang Prize for Contributions to the Economics of Development (for pioneering work on measurement of global value chains published in American Economic Review), the Pushan Prize for Excellence in Research on the World Economy, the Ann Tse Kai (An Zijian) Research Prize on International Trade, and the Gregory Chow Award for Best Research Paper.

During 2014-2016, Dr. Wei served as Chief Economist of Asian Development Bank and Director General of its Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department. He was ADB’s chief spokesperson on economic trends and economic development in Asia, advised ADB’s President on economic development issues, led the bank’s analytical support for regional cooperation fora including ASEAN+3 (China, Japan, and Korea) and APEC, growth strategy diagnostics for developing member countries, as well as research on macroeconomic, financial, labor market, and globalization issues. 

Prior to his Columbia appointment in 2007, he was Assistant Director and Chief of Trade and Investment Division at the International Monetary Fund. He was the IMF’s Chief of Mission to Myanmar (Burma) in 2004. He previously held the positions of Associate Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, the New Century Chair in Trade and International Economics at the Brookings Institution, and Advisor at the World Bank. 

Dr. Wei has been a consultant to numerous government organizations including the U.S. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, United Nations Economic Commission on Europe, and United Nations Development Program, the Asian Development Bank, and to private companies such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, UBS. He holds a PhD in economics and M.S. in finance from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Dr. Wei’s research has been published in top academic journals including American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of International Economics, and Journal of Development Economics, and reported in popular media including Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Business Week, Times, US News and World Report, Chicago Tribune, Nikkei Asian Review, South China Morning Post, and other international news media.