Center Leadership
![Christopher Mayer](/sites/default/files-efs/styles/default_1_1_desktop/public/person/photos/Chris%20Mayer-1909_rt.jpg?h=be8cfab0&itok=u23WU68I)
Christopher Mayer
- Paul Milstein Professor of Real Estate
- Finance Division
- Co-Director
- Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate
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Christopher Mayer
- Paul Milstein Professor of Real Estate
- Finance Division
- Co-Director
- Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate
Christopher Mayer is the Paul Milstein Professor of Real Estate at Columbia Business School. His research explores a variety of topics in real estate and financial markets, including housing cycles, mortgage markets, debt securitization, and commercial real estate valuation. Dr. Mayer is also CEO of Longbridge Financial, an innovative reverse mortgage company focused on delivering responsible home equity products to older Americans to help finance retirement.
![David Sherman, class of 1982](/sites/default/files-efs/styles/default_1_1_desktop/public/person/photos/David%20Sherman%201037.jpg?h=4ffac15b&itok=GdNIuKAZ)
David Sherman
- Co-Director
- Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate
- Adjunct Professor of Business
- Finance Division
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David Sherman
- Co-Director
- Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate
- Adjunct Professor of Business
- Finance Division
Mr. 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.
Kristin Svenningsen
- Managing Director
- Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate
Kristin Svenningsen is the Managing Director for The Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate. Prior to joining the Business School in August 2014, Kristin was a Leasing and Marketing Manager for Emerge212, SL Green Realty as well as an Operations Manager. She holds an M.A. from Teachers College and an M.S. in Mass Communication and Theater from Towson University. Kristin was born in Old Bridge, New Jersey and was raised in Manalapan.
Center Staff
Founding Director
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Lynne Sagalyn
- Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore Professor Emerita of Real Estate
- Finance Division
Lynne B. Sagalyn is the Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore Professor Emerita of Real Estate at Columbia Business School, where she was formerly the director of the MBA Real Estate Program and the founding director of the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate.
Executive-in-Residence
![Headshot of Leanne Lachman](/sites/default/files-efs/styles/default_1_1_desktop/public/person/photos/Second%20version.png?h=e6f36a9c&itok=r7QDOGP4)
M. Leanne Lachman
- Executive in Residence
- Executives in Residence Program
- Executive in Residence
- Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate
- Areas of Advising:
- Real Estate, Demographics (U.S and Global trends), Corporate Governance
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M. Leanne Lachman
- Executive in Residence
- Executives in Residence Program
- Executive in Residence
- Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate
- Areas of Advising:
- Real Estate, Demographics (U.S and Global trends), Corporate Governance
M. Leanne Lachman is president of Lachman Associates, an independent real estate consulting company. Previously, Ms. Lachman spent 13 years as a partner at Schroder Real Estate Associates, a boutique real estate manager that was acquired by Lend Lease, a global institutional investment manager, where she spent four years. Her early career was with Real Estate Research Corporation, where she served as chief executive officer. A highly sought after speaker and widely published author of books and articles on the real estate industry, Ms.
Real Estate Faculty
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Boaz Abramson
- Assistant Professor of Business
- Finance Division
Boaz Abramson is an assistant professor in the finance division at Columbia Business School. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University in 2022, and holds a MA and BA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
![Brian P. Lancaster](/sites/default/files-efs/styles/default_1_1_desktop/public/person/photos/BPL%20photo.jpg?h=1b09836c&itok=fhq6nknu)
Brian Lancaster
- Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Finance and Economics in the Faculty of Business
- Finance Division
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Brian Lancaster
- Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Finance and Economics in the Faculty of Business
- Finance Division
Brian P. Lancaster is a Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Finance at the Columbia Business School. Professor Lancaster teaches the following courses: Real Estate Finance, Real Estate Debt Markets, Residential Real Estate Finance: Dirt, Debt and Derivatives, Capital Markets and Investments, Real Estate Entrepreneurship, and Debt Markets in the MBA, EMBA, PhD and MS&E programs. Professor Lancaster received the Robert. W.
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Tomasz Piskorski
- Edward S. Gordon Professor of Real Estate
- Finance Division
Tomasz Piskorski is the Edward S. Gordon Professor of Real Estate in the Finance Division at Columbia Business School. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and serves on the Academic Research Council of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Professor Piskorski earned a M.S. in Mathematics from New York University Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and a Ph.D. in Economics from New York University Stern School of Business.
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Parinitha Sastry
- Assistant Professor of Business
- Finance Division
Professor Parinitha (Pari) Sastry is an assistant professor of finance at Columbia Business School. Her research focuses on climate change, financial intermediation, and real-estate markets. She received her B.A. from Columbia University and her finance Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has worked previously at the Department of Treasury, Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, Brookings Institution, and New York Fed.
![Photo of Professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh](/sites/default/files-efs/styles/default_1_1_desktop/public/person/photos/Van%20Nieuwerburgh_Stijn_4200Retouched.jpg?h=f2fcf546&itok=dRtMKfQx)
Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh
- Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore Professor of Real Estate
- Finance Division
- Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore Professor of Real Estate
- Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate
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Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh
- Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore Professor of Real Estate
- Finance Division
- Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore Professor of Real Estate
- Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate
Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh is the Earle W. Kazis and Benjamin Schore Professor of Real Estate and Professor of Finance at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business, which he joined in July 2018. His research lies in the intersection of housing, asset pricing, and macroeconomics. One strand of his work studies how financial market liberalization in the mortgage market relaxed households' down payment constraints, and how that affected the macro-economy, and the prices of stocks and bonds.
Adjunct Real Estate Faculty
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Benjamin Atkins
Over his twenty-five year career in real estate, Professor Atkins has worked at the highest levels of institutional real estate as well as being a successful multi-strategy real estate investor. He has consummated the purchase and development of properties with a gross asset value in excess of $1 billion.
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Ivo Servandus De Wit
- Adjunct Professor of Business
- Finance Division
Ivo de Wit is an Adjunct Professor and Senior Fellow at Columbia Business School and has been a visiting lecturer at University of Cambridge, New York University, MIT, University of Connecticut and University of Northern Carolina.
Ivo is a Managing Director at CBRE Global Investors and has over 20 years of real estate investment experience across the world. He has been the Fund Manager of the core+ global flag ship fund of CBRE Global Investors since inception which grew to $5Bn+ of equity.
![Columbia Business School](/sites/default/files-efs/styles/default_1_1_desktop/public/default_images/blue-hermes-placeholder.jpg?h=4a7d1ed4&itok=MIhLSQOL)
Michael Giliberto
- Adjunct Professor of Business
- Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate
- Adjunct Professor of Business
- Finance Division
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Michael Giliberto
- Adjunct Professor of Business
- Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate
- Adjunct Professor of Business
- Finance Division
Michael Giliberto retired in 2010 as a Managing Director at JPMorgan Asset Management, the global investment management business of JPMorgan Chase. Mr. Giliberto oversaw U.S. real estate portfolio management and global strategy and research within the Global Real Assets Group.
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John Haggerty
- Adjunct Associate Professor of Business
- Finance Division
John Haggerty is a partner in and co-chair of Goodwin’s Public M&A / Corporate Governance practice. He works on a wide variety of corporate and securities matters, including public and private mergers and acquisitions, public and private offerings of equity and debt securities by public companies, corporate governance and other matters of general corporate and securities law. He has been recognized in the Corporate/M&A: Capital Markets category by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business.
![Columbia Business School](/sites/default/files-efs/styles/default_1_1_desktop/public/default_images/blue-hermes-placeholder.jpg?h=4a7d1ed4&itok=MIhLSQOL)
Andrew Jacobs
- Adjunct Professor
- Finance Division
- Adjunct Professor of Business
- Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate
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Andrew Jacobs
- Adjunct Professor
- Finance Division
- Adjunct Professor of Business
- Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate
Andrew Jacobs is a Managing Director and Partner at Metropolitan Real Estate Equity Management, having joined the firm in 2008. Professor Jacobs is responsible for identifying, evaluating and overseeing real estate private equity fund managers and investment opportunities. Investments span the capital stack, property types and global markets, but his focus is managers based in the eastern United States and Brazil. Professor Jacobs also seeks and reviews opportunities to purchase interests in underlying funds on the secondary market.
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Ronald Kravit
- Adjunct Assistant Professor of Business
- Finance Division
Mr. Kravit is currently a Senior Managing Director at Cerberus Capital Management on the Supply Chain and Strategic Opportunities team, which invests in businesses driving next-generation technologies and capabilities that advance supply chain integrity and national security. Mr. Kravit is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Business at Columbia Business School and teaches the Real Estate Distressed Investing course.
![David Sherman, class of 1982](/sites/default/files-efs/styles/default_1_1_desktop/public/person/photos/David%20Sherman%201037.jpg?h=4ffac15b&itok=GdNIuKAZ)
David Sherman
- Co-Director
- Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate
- Adjunct Professor of Business
- Finance Division
![](/sites/default/files-efs/styles/default_content_image_mobile/public/person/photos/David%20Sherman%201037.jpg?h=4ffac15b&itok=bWzJ13Fc)
David Sherman
- Co-Director
- Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate
- Adjunct Professor of Business
- Finance Division
Mr. 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.
Staff Officers of Research
Research Affiliates
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Ivo Servandus De Wit
- Adjunct Professor of Business
- Finance Division
Ivo de Wit is an Adjunct Professor and Senior Fellow at Columbia Business School and has been a visiting lecturer at University of Cambridge, New York University, MIT, University of Connecticut and University of Northern Carolina.
Ivo is a Managing Director at CBRE Global Investors and has over 20 years of real estate investment experience across the world. He has been the Fund Manager of the core+ global flag ship fund of CBRE Global Investors since inception which grew to $5Bn+ of equity.