The Columbia Business School Real Estate Association (REA) is pleased to announce the assistant vice presidents elected for the 2018–19 academic year. The officers, all in the class of 2020, were elected by the REA membership.

Meet the AVPs!

Alumni & Mentorship

Michael Barkman

Michael Barkman is an MBA student in the Class of 2020 with a concentration in Real Estate. Prior to CBS, he worked in the M&A Advisory Group at Mizuho Securities USA, advising on cross-border mergers and acquisitions, from 2014 to 2018. Michael graduated from the University of Denver in 2014 with a BS in Business and Economics. He is also a dedicated midfielder for the CBS Football Club.

Adam Kietz

Adam Kietz is a member of the Columbia Business School Class of 2020 focusing on Real Estate Finance. Prior to CBS, Adam was part of a financial advisory group at J.P. Morgan Securities which oversaw $1.5 billion in assets for individual and institutional clients. In his role there, Adam advised clients on investments, banking, credit, and wealth advisory, with a focus on due diligence and capital raising for real estate and other private investment structures. Adam had close to 7 years of experience in asset management at J.P. Morgan and is a CFA Charter holder. He is originally from New York and currently lives on the Upper West Side of NYC.  

Careers

Ricardo Leite

Ricardo Leite is a member of Columbia Business School’s Class of 2020. Prior to Columbia, he worked as an Assistant Vice President at GIC, Singapore’ sovereign wealth fund. At GIC, Ricardo led the execution of cross-border investments in core, value-add and development opportunities in the office, industrial and retail sectors. He also worked at Credit Suisse’s investment banking department, covering M&A transactions in energy and real estate. Ricardo graduated from Universidade de São Paulo and is a Columbia Fellow at Columbia Business School.

Daniel Gutierrez

Prior to Columbia Business School, Daniel Gutierrez was an Associate in NYC at Blackstone, an alternative asset management firm specializing in the management of private equity funds, real estate funds, hedge fund solutions, and credit-focused funds. Most recently, Daniel was on Blackstone’s Corporate Development Team identifying and evaluating platform M&A transactions and other firmwide strategic initiatives. Daniel is from Rockville, MD and graduated from Villanova University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Finance and minors in Economics and Management Information Systems.

Communications & Tech

Kathleen Collins

Kathleen Collins is a member of Columbia Business School Class of 2020.  Prior to Columbia, Kathleen worked as a venture capital investor at Industry Ventures, a $3B multi-strategy fund based in San Francisco, CA.  Kathleen comes from a family of real estate developers and has always held an interest in the space; she came to Columbia to focus on real estate acquisitions and development as well as the convergence of technology and real estate.  Kathleen graduated from Dartmouth College in 2011 where she studied Geopolitics and captained the Dartmouth Women’s Lacrosse Team.

EMBA

Nick Greenberg

Nick Greenberg is a first year EMBA student working at Värde Partners, a ~$14B alternative investment firm, where he focuses on investing in real estate equity, debt,  and platforms. Prior to Värde, Nick worked as an acquisitions Associate at Silverpeak (formerly Lehman RE Partners), after starting his career at Brookfield. Nick graduated from USC in 2011 with a BSC in Civil Engineering and in 2012 from Columbia’s MSRED program.

Case Competitions:

Stephen Denis

Stephen Denis is a member of Columbia Business School’s class of 2020. Most recently, Stephen was the VP of Finance at Pacific Traverse Energy, an infrastructure development and investment firm developing large-scale energy terminal assets in Canada. Prior to Pacific Traverse, Stephen was a Vice President at Strata Energy Investments, a middle market private equity firm focused on equity investments in the oil and gas infrastructure space. Stephen started his career in M&A investment banking at a subsidiary of Perella Weinberg Partners and attended Tulane University in New Orleans, where he double majored in Finance and Legal Studies in Business. Having long been interested in real estate, Stephen hopes to pivot to a private equity or development role in the industry after completing his MBA.

Education

Jeremy Schwartz

Jeremy Schwartz is a first-year MBA student at Columbia Business School. He graduated with a BS in Applied Mathematics & Statistics from Johns Hopkins University where he was also a member of the Men’s Tennis team. Prior to CBS, Jeremy was an Associate at Boathouse Capital, a middle market private equity firm that makes both debt and equity investments. Prior to this position, he was an Investment Banking Analyst at Stifel Nicolaus where he worked on M&A and capital markets transactions for companies in the Transportation and Logistics sector.

Events

Shrey Gupta

Shrey Gupta is a member of the Class of 2020 at Columbia Business School concentrating in Real Estate and Finance. Shrey’s prior work experience includes a role as AVP and member of the early team at OYO, among the world’s fastest growing real estate and hospitality startups, with $1B+ in capital raised and backing from Softbank, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Before joining OYO, Shrey worked with Indian Prime Minister Modi’s election campaign office and with strategy consulting firm Bain & Co.’s India office on corporate strategy and new market entry engagements.

Shrey received an undergraduate degree in Business from Shri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi in India where he was elected President of the Student Government. His passions include singing, eating at new restaurants and discussing politics and business.

Finance

David Butler

David Butler is from Kilkenny, Ireland. He graduated from Limerick Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Quantity Surveying. Prior to business school, David worked as Senior Project Manager on medium to large scale infrastructure projects in the Bay Area and co-founded a construction and engineering firm that specialized in the installation of underground utilities.

Site Tours

Claire Kao

Claire Kao is originally from Los Angeles and graduated from Columbia Engineering with a B.S. in Civil Engineering in 2014. Prior to business school, Claire was an Assistant Project Manager on 3 World Trade Center with AECOM Tishman. Outside of CBS, Claire is the chair of a junior board for a non-profit called the Crime Victims Treatment Center and on the advisory board of Film Forum. In addition to her role on the REA Board, she serves as the CBS Class of 2020 Senator and as AVP of Careers with CBS Reflects.

International

Sarah Wagner

Sarah Wagner is a member of Columbia Business School class of 2020. Prior to Business School, Sarah was a Senior Associate at the New York City Economic Development (NYCEDC) focusing real estate public-private partnerships in New York City. Prior to this, she spent two years at Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, the premier global shopping center developer, working on retail and office projects in France and in Germany. She graduated in 2014 from HEC Paris with a combined Bachelor and Master in Management.

Trips

Federica Burelli

Federica Burelli graduated from Duke University in 2010, where she majored in Civil Engineering and obtained a Certificate in Architectural Engineering. Prior to starting Columbia Business School, she spent 8 years at Clark Construction Group. At Clark, Federica began her career working in field supervision and project management on ground-up multi-family residential projects. She then transitioned into Preconstruction Services, where she worked in budgeting, estimating and purchasing. Her experience assembling construction budgets for 36 projects totaling $4.4B piqued her interest in the real estate industry. Most recently, she was the Senior Project Manager on Midtown Center DC, a $231M core & shell office building (875,000 RSF) that delivered under an accelerated schedule of 2.5 years.

Chris Grube

Chris Grube is a first year MBA student at Columbia Business School focused on real estate investment and development. Chris graduated with honors from Northwestern University, with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and International Studies. Prior to CBS, Chris was an Associate in the Commercial Real Estate group at Deutsche Bank where he managed the origination of large commercial mortgage and mezzanine loans for a variety of institutional sponsors.