Kevin Riordan, executive director of the Rutgers Center for Real Estate, introduces a keynote speaker at the center’s recent conference on affordable housing in Newark. — Courtesy: Rutgers Center for Real Estate/Fred Stucker
By Joshua Burd
The Center for Real Estate at Rutgers Business School has hired a veteran finance executive to help oversee its growth in the years ahead, the program announced Wednesday.
Kevin Riordan, who has more than 30 years of experience in real estate, was named executive director and is responsible for developing a long-term strategic vision for the center, according to a news release. Among other duties, he will establish and assist with the implementation of executive and continuing education programs, while working with center’s advisory board and Emerging Leaders Council members, faculty and students to promote the center through conferences and lectures with a focus on recruiting new students to pursue a career in real estate.
Prior to joining the Center for Real Estate, Riordan served as CEO of Crexus Investment Corp., a public commercial mortgage real estate investment trust, the news release said. Before that, he was a senior managing director at TIAA-CREF, where he oversaw structured securities.
“Kevin’s far-reaching experience in the real estate field, knowledge of the industry and strategic thinking make him an ideal fit as the executive director of the Center for Real Estate,” Morris A. Davis, the Paul V. Profeta chair and academic director of the Center, said in a prepared statement. “Kevin shares our goal of providing the most advanced and innovative curriculum and the most important and timely research available for real estate to give our students an unprecedented advantage and equip with them with the skills and experiences needed to thrive and evolve into an industry leader of their generation.
“I welcome him to this role and look forward to working with him on making the Center for Real Estate the No. 1 academic real estate program in the country.”
Riordan has served in positions overseeing the financing, investing and securitization of commercial real estate through investment strategies involving commercial mortgages, mezzanine debt, commercial mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligation securities, REIT debt and REIT common and preferred stock. He is a CPA and received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Rutgers-Newark College of Arts and Sciences and an MBA in finance from Seton Hall University.
The announcement comes about a week after the center hosted a high-profile conference on the state of affordable housing policy in New Jersey, its latest event since the program launched in earnest some two years ago. The conference drew about 150 to the Newark Museum, as stakeholders dissected the history of the exclusionary zoning dispute in the state and discussed possible solutions to the crisis.
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The Jersey City resident is a board member of NAIOP, the commercial real estate organization, and previously served on the board of governors as a member of Commercial Real Estate Finance Council. He was also a member of National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts.
