Introducing Adam, the Asset Manager

The type-A overachiever managing the Harbor Yards redevelopment

Thesis Driven’s case-based course series, Fundamentals, helps people better understand commercial real estate through the trials and tribulations of ten fictional characters. 

Over the next few weeks we’ll be introducing the ten characters in the Fundamentals series.  

These characters–and the projects they work on–help people better understand the commercial real estate industry by providing practical, real-world scenarios that highlight key concepts, challenges, and solutions in the field. 

Today we introduce Adam, the Asset Manager, including: 

• Adam’s profile and current role

• His career trajectory to date

• Adam’s comp package 

• A snapshot of Adam’s day

Adam’s profile and current role

A quick profile on Adam:

• Name: Adam the Asset Manager

• Age: 36 (Aries)

• Job: Head of Asset Management, Elevated Properties (reports directly to Michelle the Managing Director)

• Location: Big Apple City

• Education: B.A. Economics, Princeton University

• Enjoys: Summer weekends out East, boating, bootcamp workouts

Adam works at Elevated Properties, a (fictional) value-add investment firm that is currently redeveloping Harbor Yards, a (fictional) 200,000 square foot office complex being redeveloped into a mixed-use community with office space, retail, and apartments.  

Harbor Yards is his big career opportunity, and he needs to make sure it is a massive success.

Adam would be described by his newly ex-girlfriend as someone who is anxious and insecure, and uses the fact that he went to Princeton to make others feel inferior, including her. But his mother would say he’s been highly focused and motivated since kindergarten, when he created a spreadsheet to track the number of answers his classmates got right/wrong each day.

Adam’s career trajectory

After Princeton, Adam worked as an Analyst in the real estate investment banking group at Goldman Jachs in Big Apple City.  

As an Analyst he was responsible for market research and putting together materials for real estate clients who needed help raising equity and debt capital. But after two years of working 100-hour weeks and a series of frequent panic attacks, he abruptly left one Friday to “pursue a more entrepreneurial career path” (in reality he was following his therapist and mother’s advice to get out of banking before it was too late).

He first went to a small 8-person real estate firm who acquired and redeveloped Class B multifamily buildings in Big Apple City.  He joined as an Associate and was put under the Head of Asset Management (the brother-in-law of the firm’s founder), where he was responsible for overseeing the day-to-day performance of the assets, monthly budget reporting, and leasing.  

After a few years he realized that although he was the star of the team, he would never unseat his boss due to obvious nepotism, so he hired a headhunter to help him find a more institutional firm where he could spread his wings.

So he joined Elevated Properties shortly after his 30th birthday as a VP of Asset Management.  Elevated Properties was run by another former Goldman Jachs alumni, Michelle, and was growing quickly as a leading value-add investment firm in Big Apple City, buying distressed assets using creative financial structuring and then repositioning them as vibrant mixed-use projects. 

Now, he’s risen to Head of Asset Management, overseeing the firm’s 2 million square foot portfolio.  His latest project, Harbor Yards, needs to be a major success, as he plans to use its as the cornerstone project to launch his own firm (shh!).

Adam’s compensation package 

Adam’s salary is currently a combination of salary, bonus and a small percentage of the “carried interest” in the projects he’s working on. 

He makes a $400,000 base salary with a 50% annual bonus ($200,000) tied to certain performance metrics that he and Michelle agree to each year, like renewing a key tenant or managing the completion of a project on time and on budget.

Additionally, Elevated is paid a “carried interest” on real estate projects–a percentage of the profits from its projects after repaying its debt and equity partners, which is sometimes in the tens of millions.  Michelle has agreed to pay Adam 5% of the carried interest (on Harbor Yards this will equal an additional $500k or more to Adam if the project is successful).

And while Adam appreciates the current job and very solid pay at Elevated, at some point he wants to be in Michelle’s position, keeping the lion’s share of the carried interest to get truly rich!

A snapshot of Adam’s day

Adam’s days start at 6am with a 1-hour planning session of his daily goals, key meetings and a critique of his performance from the day before. He then walks 30 minutes to work and listens to the Huberman Lab or How to Talk to Girls podcast, or calls his mom. 

He spends his mornings on calls with the leasing teams and property managers at various buildings, with a specific focus on Harbor Yards, where he is committed to finding an anchor office tenant–a Fortune 500 firm who will take 50,000 square feet or more. 

He eats lunch at his desk while he reviews the construction budget at Harbor Yards and then hops on a two-hour call with Carl, the General Contractor and Patrick, the Property Manager reviewing the last month’s budget and strategies for staying on timeline with the project. 

In the afternoon he has a call with his lender, Leon at Bells Margo, to review that same budget and timeline and ensure they will be able to make their debt payments. He then has to work with his analyst to create an ESG report for their biggest LP, Ian, a billionaire who has committed his net worth to green initiatives, including sustainable real estate developments like Harbor Yards.

After eating dinner at his desk, Adam catches up on his emails and ensures he achieved the goals he set that morning.  Then he heads out to his Thursday night networking group with five Ivy Club alumni, where they pat each other’s backs for their contributions to capitalism.

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We cover Adam, and nine other Fundamentals’ characters, in our first course: Fundamentals of Commercial Real Estate (new dates coming soon).

Through their experiences, learners gain valuable insights into various aspects of commercial real estate, from underwriting and capital raising to asset management and property development, enabling them to apply these lessons to their own careers.

—Paul Stanton