Part of the joy of working at Archer comes from solving the challenging problems together with stellar teammates.
Based in Woodside, Calif., Thomas is a serial fintech entrepreneur with prior ventures focused on helping investors invest in startups (Xpert Financial), startups manage their fundraise process (CapRally), and investors invest in alternative assets (Venovate). Thomas spent the prior four years working at the brokerage firms JLL and HFF as a Director on the Investment Sales teams where he gained valuable insights on capital markets and commercial real estate. Thomas received his MBA from The Wharton Executive MBA Program in San Francisco and his B.A. in Economics at UCLA where he helped take the Men’s Water Polo team to a National Championship.
Fred is an operations & finance executive based in Bend, Ore. Prior to co-founding Archer, Fred worked for the world’s largest gold mining company, Newmont Mining, where he held roles within the CFO and Strategic Finance divisions domestically and abroad. Most recently, Fred was the Regional CFO (acting) for North America while he also led Business Development and Planning efforts for the North American region. Fred received his MBA from The Wharton Executive MBA Program in San Francisco, having earned a major in Operational Effectiveness, and graduating as a Palmer Scholar. Fred was also a recipient of the Tikvah Weiner Award for Leadership. Fred is an Eagle Scout.
Miles boasts more than 15 years of CRE experience and proven success in executing institutional level development, repositioning, and capitalization projects for multiple asset classes totaling over $1B in value. Miles has successfully built strong partnerships with property owners, brokers, equity partners, lenders, and capital providers. Combining solid experience in overall real estate valuation, finance, asset management, development, and principal investing, he has developed value-add strategies that have delivered attractive risk-adjusted returns. Based in Washington, D.C., Miles received his Master’s in Real Estate Finance from Georgetown University.
Based in San Jose, Calif., Prabhat has diverse experience including data science & analytics, investment management, and software development. He spent 10+ years leading software development projects at Oracle and OATSystems. After obtaining his MBA in 2011, Prabhat was responsible for quantitative research in asset allocation and security selection. He helped launch several ETFs at Cambria Investments and a hedge fund at Summer Road. Prabhat has led data analytics efforts for several companies, while helping to make data driven decisions. He is an engineering graduate from IIT in Kanpur, India, and received his MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management where he was an ASAM fellow.
Based in Los Angeles, CA, Kristin has nearly two decades of marketing experience, primarily in the asset management industry. She has worked at Capital Group and TIAA in a variety of roles including product marketing, digital marketing and content strategy. At TIAA, Kristin launched employee engagement and financial education programs for multibillion dollar institutional clients. Most recently, she led marketing for Capital Group’s retirement strategies and thought leadership program. Kristin received her MBA from The Wharton Executive MBA Program in San Francisco, graduating with honors, and her B.A. from Columbia University, graduating magna cum laude. Kristin is a CFA charterholder and sits on the board of the Armory Center for the Arts.
Tom Hutton is on the growth and development of each of the 12 ventures in the XL Innovate portfolio of investments. Tom Hutton serves as a Director and mentor to the management teams, and has been said to have “more contact with (individual investments) than all other Board members combined.”
Each company represents a unique passion, and he played a key role in each of the investment decisions.
In addition to the XL Innovate portfolio, Tom serves as an Advisory Director at three active investment firms: Brewer Lane Ventures (early stage Insurtech and Fintech); Genstar Capital (multi sector, middle market Private Equity); and Stone Point Capital (financial services Private Equity).
He is also an investor and Board member at a small group of private companies that include Archipelago (property risk management); Archer (commercial real estate investment management); Long Meadow Ranch (LMR, wine and hospitality); SoFi; Philbrooks Boatyard (marine services). He serves as a Trustee of the New York Yacht Club.
Tom is considered a rare veteran in the Insurtech Venture Capital community, having participated as an entrepreneur or investor for nearly 35 years. As an entrepreneur, a long-term insurtech venture investor, and a director in several successful insurance and financial technology companies, Tom’s career has been dedicated to risk management … even when the risk was his own.
In his mid-twenties, Tom owned a commercial fishing boat (that he designed), and to address the high cost of insurance, he grouped ten fishermen together and pooled their risk by buying insurance in excess of one major loss. In effect, he started an early insurance cooperative.
After working as a Consultant at McKinsey and Company, Tom served for 10 years as the first CEO of Risk Management Solutions, a pioneer and global leader in providing risk modeling software, data and analytic services related to catastrophic risks to the insurance industry. His insurance career continued as CEO of White Mountains Re and Board Director of several insurance and reinsurance companies including XL Group, Safeco, Montpelier Re, Centre Cat, and Palomar Specialty.
In 2011, Tom founded New Energy Risk in partnership with XL Group. Tom served as CEO until the founding of XL Innovate in 2015, and currently serves as Chairman. New Energy Risk addresses opportunities to apply insurance to support the development and financing of clean technology and renewable energy solutions and infrastructure, through an innovative form of insured technology performance.
Tom earned his BA in Economics and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and his MBA from Harvard Business School. Tom is involved in several non-profit organizations with an emphasis on secondary school education and environmental issues. He recently served for several years as a Trustee at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where he was President from 2008 to 2015. He and his family pursue philanthropic interests through the Hutton Family Foundation. His recreational interests include Sailing, Skiing, Bicycling and travel.
Why Archer?
I am passionate about working with Archer for two compelling reasons. First, the potential value of applying Archer’s data analytics in the real estate asset market is very, very substantial. Second, the management team is highly qualified, it has studied the opportunity space deeply, and has assembled what we consider to be just the right skills to succeed.
Fun Fact
In his mid-twenties, Tom was a designer and builder of commercial fishing vessels, one of which he owned and operated in Bristol Bay, Alaska. To address the very high cost of insurance, he formed his first risk venture, by forming a group of fishermen and pooling both operating and insurance risks in a “pier to pier” structure.
Naozer is president and COO of Nav.it, a pioneer in coaching people through behavior change to improve their financial wellness.
Previously, Naozer was a member of the senior management team at Barclays Global Investors (BGI), the industry leader in the field of systematic, quantitative investing until its sale to BlackRock in 2009. During a 12-year tenure, he held positions that included Chief Operating Officer for the Active Businesses, Co-Head of Active Equities, and Head of Product, Investment, and Capital Markets for iShares.
Since leaving BlackRock in 2012, Naozer has been an investor in, and advisor to early-stage companies, actively engaging with leadership teams, inside and outside the boardroom. These include CamberView Partners, BridgeAthletic, and Spicewalla.
Why Archer?
The firm’s technology platform will transform the way institutions and individuals invest in real estate, including eventually bringing them exposure to commercial real estate in a format that they have grown accustomed to with publicly traded assets – i.e. targeted market exposure, in liquid, transparent vehicles, with low fees. I am excited about being part of that journey. And, I believe in the founding team.
What do you wish you knew how to do?
Play the piano
What is the best decision you’ve ever made?
Having children and making a sincere effort to raise them well
How do you define success?
Developing and nurturing deep and lasting human relationships, personal and professional.
Mary C. Henry spent 18 years at Goldman Sachs, primarily as a communications technology analyst in the Firm’s Investment Research Division. A top-ranked analyst for many years, she was named a Partner and Managing Director of the Firm in 1996.
During her tenure at Goldman Sachs, Mary was personally involved in company financings that totaled tens of billions of dollars and well as strategic projects. She collaborated with research, investment banking and private equity colleagues to evaluate companies in technology and communications services worldwide and worked extensively with major institutional investors around the world. She retired from the firm in 2004.
Since then, Mary has served on corporate boards, as an advisor to young companies, and on the boards of educational and nonprofit institutions. She is a member of the Governing Board of iCivics, the leading provider of civic education in the country, and chairs the finance and audit committee.
Mary is Co-President of the Woodside High School Foundation and is a member of the investment committee of Sacred Heart Schools, Atherton. Mary graduated from Northwestern University with an undergraduate degree in economics and a graduate degree in journalism.
Why Archer?
Archer provides private real estate investors with the same opportunity that public equity investors have always enjoyed—the idea that targeted investment strategies driven by exceptional information produce superior returns. Having witnessed firsthand the power of market and sector selection in technology stocks over decades, I am excited to see Archer create the prospect of real estate investments powered by a new level of analytics.
Best advice you’ve ever received?
“Don’t drive looking in the rearview mirror.”
What’s your favorite book?
The Killer Angels, the historical novel of the Battle of Gettysburg by Michael Shaara. Capturing the high ground early can be the decisive factor in any competition.
Jennifer is known for scaling businesses across asset management and financial services that have a positive impact for investors. She is now CEO at Engine No. 1.
Engine No. 1 is an impact investing group purpose-built to create long-term value by driving positive impact. Engine No. 1 believes companies that provide a positive net benefit to society achieve value over time.
Before Engine No. 1, Jennifer founded an advisory firm where she worked closely with CEOs to accelerate business growth. She previously served as a founding member of BlackRock’s iShares business, where she led European, US and global distribution and drove the growth of both the global ETF industry and iShares’ leadership role. During her tenure at BlackRock, she also led teams across wealth, personal investing, technology and related venture investing. She started her career as a consultant at PwC.
Jennifer received a BA in Economics and International Relations from Stanford University and an MBA from Columbia Business School. She serves on the boards of MannKind Corporation and Ethic. She is passionate and active in mentoring and developing diverse leaders.
Why Archer?
Archer is looking to democratize and create liquidity to a market that has been more opaque. Whenever a great firm delivers quality access to an impenetrable market in a way that is good for long-term investors, I am all in.
What are you most proud of, either professionally or personally?
Building businesses and launching children into their own.
Do you have a personal philosophy? If so, what is it?
As a naturally introverted woman, I had to learn in my early career years to have courage, speak up, share a good idea and advocate for my ideas. I try and pay it forward now by actively listening to others and recruiting other voices. Diversity of thought in problem-solving has power.
Do you have any scars that tell a story? If so, what it is?
As an undergraduate I would try to outrun the squirrels on campus on my bike. One day I tried to anticipate the squirrel and went over the handlebars. Lesson? Can't control everything.
What person in your life has had the biggest impact?
My father. He grew up as a poor immigrant (two shirts and one pair of shoes). He was very generous with his time and grounded and appreciated every day. Lesson: do not take things for granted and be generous to others.
Ira Shapiro is a veteran global asset management executive who helped pioneer the world’s leading ETF provider. He is currently an investor in, and strategic adviser to, financial technology, financial data and asset management companies, and has worked with companies such as Alphabet, Lending Club and Capital Group.
Ira is part of the sponsor team of Fintech Evolution LLC, a special purpose acquisition vehicle, and an independent director of Alerian, a privately-owned provider of financial indexes and data.
From 2012 to 2017, Ira was a managing director of BlackRock, Inc. in its iShares ETF business, the world’s largest ETF sponsor, with over $3 trillion under management.
Ira had several business roles including Head of Global Product Development and Head of Index Strategy. As Head of iShares Global Product Development, he was responsible for leading new ETF product strategy and designing new ETFs, including smart beta, defined-maturity and rate-hedged fixed income ETFs.
As Head of Index Strategy, Ira was responsible for managing global relationships with index sponsors, including leading business decisions regarding allocation of business, managing ETF product development projects requiring close research partnerships with index partners and coordinating index-related research globally among regional product teams.
Ira was previously the chief legal officer for iShares and Associate General Counsel at Barclays Global Investors (BGI), which was acquired by BlackRock in 2009. As Associate General Counsel for BGI, he led a global legal team that was responsible for the firm’s institutional equity products and securities lending business as well as the ETF business.
Prior to joining BGI, Ira held both legal and business roles at Merrill Lynch. He lives in California wine country (Sonoma County), where he occasionally teaches wine appreciation classes and is involved with local wineries and restaurants.
Why Archer?
I’m most excited about Archer’s interest in innovation, and that it is seeking to create a better model for institutional real estate investing.
What do you wish you could do?
I love to travel and wish I had the ability to speak multiple languages, but I am monolingual and at times struggle with English.
How do you define success?
I define success as reaching a point where you have the freedom/ability to do the things that hold the most interest for you.
Who has had the biggest impact on you?
The person who had the most impact on me was my maternal grandfather, who as a young man was a professional (illegal) gambler. He later went into legitimate businesses and became a stock trader (short seller, mostly) for his own account. He taught me how to maintain his trading records when I was very young. From him I inherited an interested in gambling/figuring out probabilities, and a fascination with securities markets (which became my profession).
Joseph Stecher is a principal with Candlewood Investors. He’s a business builder and innovator who is expert in all areas of capital markets and real estate investing globally. He’s an advisor to investment sponsors seeking ideas for capital-raising and structuring, a leader of a real estate technology startup, principal investor, and investment advisor to high net worth and institutional investors.
Joseph has committed $5 billion (equity) to investments in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Latin America, founded the real estate fund of funds businesses at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, launched Candlewood Investors to raise capital for investment sponsors and advise investors, and was the first to join RealConnex as a senior member of the management team for this CRE Tech startup.
The common thread is matching investment capital with investment ideas, and gathering together a global community of real estate investors and investment sponsors.
Having invested globally as both a general partner and a limited partner, Joseph brings a broad and helpful perspective to Candlewood, with a focus on building investor trust through clear communication and superior performance. Through RealConnex, my partners and I are bringing this same perspective to the web.
What about Archer’s vision makes you excited as an advisor?
If an institutional investor has conviction about a property type in a particular market, the investor cannot act on it without taking the idiosyncratic risk of buying a single property. I share the Founder’s vision of a day when an investor can log into the Archer site and allocate $5 million to Austin multifamily and sell $2 million of Miami industrial.
Do you have a personal philosophy? If so, what is it?
Trust what the universe gives you. La macchina va dove vanno gli occhi.
What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
Make the world a better place by being a better person.
What is your favorite movie and why?
Casablanca. Very, very long close-ups of characters making life and death decisions that surprise everyone, even themselves. But when you see it again (and again), you know what painful choice each is going to make before any of them do, which makes each struggle more poignant than the first time. You experience the plot more as a piece of music than you do as a story. It’s never been done before, and likely never will be again.
Eric leads LPC Ventures, Lincoln Property Company’s strategic venture capital arm, and the technology investment group strategically positioned to invest in early-stage companies with the potential to radically change the real estate industry.
As Vice President of Innovation and Technology Partnerships for Lincoln Property Company, Eric Roseman is responsible for strategic innovation and special projects for LPC’s Commercial division and the LPC West region. He supports new business development and expands relationships by educating owners and occupiers on built-environment technology, devising new ways to improve the occupier experience, and assisting the Development and Occupier business lines during the planning stages for new developments, repositioning, and large tenant improvement projects.
As Head of LPC Ventures, Eric is responsible for investing in technologies and businesses to futureproof the platform. With access to over 400 million square feet of LPC office buildings managed across the U.S. and a rapidly growing mixed-use portfolio, LPC Ventures has the distribution channel to dramatically increase the value of a real estate technology solution geared toward the built environment. Under his leadership, LPC Ventures is actively deploying technology solutions across our asset base, and driving significant enterprise value for our portfolio companies.
Eric is a real estate technology thought leader, with years of experience sharing and deploying technology solutions to institutional landlord relationships and large commercial real estate occupiers. Previously, Eric served as Director of West Coast Digital Sales for CBRE after its acquisition of Floored, a 3D real estate startup, and as an Equity Portfolio specialist for Bloomberg Financial.
EDUCATION
B.S. in Finance from Pennsylvania State University
Why Archer
We are living in an age with hordes of data that are sitting in silos around the internet and no one creating the synapses and fuses to build a truly data driven model that can pair target returns with real estate types in hyper specific locations.
Because real estate is still an inside baseball business, I like Archer's boldness to move the industry closer to becoming a truly efficient market, the way public equities are.
What is the best decision you’ve ever made?
Marrying my wife! If you get your life partner decision right then everything else in life is a piece of three-layered-chocolate-cake.
What’s your favorite book or movie, and why is it your favorite?
My favorite book is Shantaram. It celebrates the mixture of adventure travel, leaning into foreign cultures and it's a beautiful expose of a man trying to find his place in the world after making some early mistakes in life.
At Irvine, we had over 1,000 employees, operated all of our assets directly and did all development, construction, etc. We had a full design team in house working with outside architects, engineers, etc. Besides building over 20,000 apartments while there, we actively renovated the older properties, doing 4-500 units per year. All Irvine properties were CA based.
At Bay/AvalonBay we focused more on acquisition and repositioning than on new development - we did about one new development per year. Bought over 20 properties while there, all put into successful redevelopment. Markets were all the major west coast cities.
Crow was a combination of new development and property management in west coast cities. Back east we did several large scale planned development projects, totaling over 5,000 acres of primarily residential but some commercial, retail, etc.
A lot of what I focused on, in addition to the real estate, was building and leading a team. Making sure there was clear direction for the organization and solid communication among the teams.
Why Archer?
One of the things I like about most about Archer is the strong data driven approach which allows for clarity and focus, allowing the team to concentrate on execution. There is an old saying that “if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” I believe that, and too many companies lack a clear strategy and direction. Archer helps companies determine that or themselves.
What are you most proud of, either professionally or personally?
Without question, it is my family. Artyn and I have been married 48 years this August and have 4 grown daughters. Each of them is married and in a strong, healthy relationship. They have collectively given us 9 grandchildren, all of whom have us wrapped around their fingers!
What is the best decision you’ve ever made?
After marrying Artyn, which is covered above, it would be going back to graduate school. I didn’t have much of a career direction when I graduated from Duke University in 1973. Had thought I would go to law school but decided against it. B school really opened a slew of opportunities for me, as did working at Arthur Andersen upon graduation. It laid the foundation for everything I have done professionally since then.
What’s your favorite book or movie, and why is it your favorite?
Very tough to choose just one, but probably The Princess Bride. It is a light-hearted fantasy that doesn’t take itself too seriously and is just downright funny and entertaining. We all spend so much time in serious matters it is nice to enjoy a bit of escape sometimes.
Shantanu has 15+ years’ experience delivering B2B software automation to Fortune 100 companies. He specializes in building artificial intelligence/machine learning playbooks at enterprise scale which have resulted in over $100M in revenue. He successfully founded a text analytics/ NLP startup – MeshLabs – which was acquired by NASDAQ-listed Pegasystems in 2014.
Shantanu has an MBA from The Wharton School, a PGSEM degree from Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Bengaluru, and an engineering degree in information technology.
What about Archer’s vision makes you excited as an advisor?
Using data as a distinct advantage is at the core of Archer’s real estate vision. As a machine learning professional, I believe that leadership commitment is the key to achieve data related network effects. With Archer, I am excited to be part of a next generation Silicon Valley real estate platform built with data at its core DNA.
What’s your favorite book or movie, and why is it your favorite?
“The facts change, I change my mind.” This quote from the book “Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip E. Tetlock (Wharton Professor), Dan Gardner” captures my pursuit of helping decision makers with insights from data. Superforecasting offers a data driven ability to predict the future--whether in real estate, finance, politics, jobs, or daily life.
What do you wish you knew how to do?
Build a company at Bay area-scale. While I focus on technology platforms, scaling a global firm grounds up in Bay area is new to me. With Archer, I get to closely experience and learn from the proven leadership team of Fred and Thomas.
Archer is building an AI-powered suite for the modern real estate investor, lender, and broker. We’ve initially started with tools for deal teams to accelerate their market analysis, deal sourcing, and underwriting processes – leading to more great deals done with less resources.
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