EMERGING REAL ESTATE

John is an experienced emerging market financier, businessman, attorney and advisor. He has twenty-two years of professional experiences, with twelve dedicated to the emerging markets. His interest in the emerging markets began while a Peace Corps volunteer on the border of Cameroon and Nigeria. John is an American and has lived in South Africa, Zambia, Cameroon, Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil. He's a native English speaker, conversational in Spanish, proficient in French, and learning Vietnamese.

In 2012, he decided to focus his career on the emerging markets and left a role at Morgan Stanley to earn a Master's in Finance at the University of Cape Town, the highest ranked University in Africa and Middle East. The thesis (download) earned a distinction and addressed syndicated private equity transactions in Africa with developed world and local investors. 

John has advised on over $500 million of exclusively mandated advisory projects and investment transactions in the emerging markets. These projects were in the media, manufacturing, technology, venture capital, real estate and mining sectors. He's most proud of the early-stage investments he facilitated amounting to $4.6 million of seed capital into primarily tech start-ups. It's been a great joy of his to watch some of those start-ups go on to achieve their dreams. One recently closed a $47 million Series A round, another an exit to a publicly-listed U.S. company. The venture investment capital came from European family offices, local private individuals and international venture capital firms.

As a real estate developer and investor in the emerging markets, John has led the development of four institutional grade commercial real estate projects comprising 695,000 ft² (i.e., 64,500 m²) with project costs of $123 million. Three of the projects were grocery-anchored shopping malls, and the fourth the Standard Chartered Bank head office for Zambia. The projects were equity funded through a private equity vehicle which had mostly pension fund LPs. The debt for the real estate projects came from regional banks, the IFC and the OPEC Fund for International Development.

John holds a professional certificate from MIT in Commercial Real Estate Finance and Development. From the University of Cape Town, the top ranked University in Africa and Middle East, John earned a Master's in Finance and his thesis earned a distinction and assessed internationally syndicated private equity investments in the emerging markets. John has a law degree and has been licensed to practice law in 2 American States. He holds an MBA and Bachelor's in Psychology.

John is the editor-and-chief of a popular newsletter he founded which is on track to be read one million times annually by 2025. The Emerging Real Estate Digest is the #1 ranked and fastest growing newsletter focused on investing in commercial real estate in the emerging markets. It cover the markets in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia and the readers include decision makers at pensions, private equity, insurance, endowments, family offices, developers and similar entities. It is devoted to solving the problem of how best can investors make successful emerging market real estate investments in a rapidly changing world.