Managing Director, Real Estate

Established in 1991, the role of the Stanford Management Company (“SMC”) is to invest and manage Stanford University's endowment and other financial assets in order to provide financial support for the continued strength of Stanford University. This requires balancing current needs and obligations with the opportunity to grow the endowment over time, through both portfolio diversification and innovative approaches to investing. SMC is a division of the University, governed by a Board of Directors appointed by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. As Stanford's endowment and trust fiduciary, SMC plays an important role in supporting the University's teaching, learning, and research mission.

SMC’s endowment is constructed on a foundation of modern portfolio theory and strategic asset allocation. The portfolio is designed to optimize long-term returns, create consistent annual payouts to the University’s operating budget and preserve purchasing power for future generations of Stanford faculty and students. SMC actively manages the endowment, selecting third-party managers to deploy the pools of capital. With Stanford University’s brand and SMC’s reputation as a stable long-term source of capital, SMC is able to gain access to the best third-party managers in the world. For all asset classes, capital is invested with a diversified set of managers across geographies and investment strategies. SMC also seeks to add value through effective risk management, tactical portfolio rebalancing and opportunistic investment tilts.
The Position

Role and Responsibilities

SMC is seeking to hire a Managing Director to oversee all investment activities related to real estate. This position will oversee a global portfolio of real estate assets and develop strategies for the asset class to achieve desired risk/return objectives and to help maximize the endowment’s long-term investment performance. The successful candidate will develop and implement SMC’s long-term global investment strategy across core, value add, and opportunistic strategies for direct investments, fund investments, and REIT's. Furthermore, he/she will be responsible for identifying compelling investment opportunities, completing due diligence, negotiating terms and conditions, monitoring results and developing appropriate exit scenarios. This individual will also be responsible for monitoring and managing relationships with existing external investment managers, researching broad investment trends, and evaluating and selecting new external managers. The Managing Director will have oversight of several direct reports and will be responsible for recruiting, retaining, training, and motivating a small, junior to mid-level investment team.

The Managing Director is expected to be able to evaluate possible investment themes within or across asset classes and to contribute to the team’s approach to identifying best-in-class opportunities across the Merged Pool while avoiding asset class “silos.”

In addition to the endowment, the successful candidate will also oversee SMC’s direct real estate portfolio including Stanford University’s commercial properties as well as legacy and new non-University direct investments.

Location
Palo Alto, CA

Reporting Relationships
John Powers, President and CEO

The Candidate

Experience and Skills
• A proven investor with a minimum of 15 years of relevant real estate experience working as a direct investor and/or manager of managers in an institutional, family office, or plan sponsor environment.
• Experience investing globally is highly valued.
• Superior analytical skills and a proven track record of incorporating quantitative and qualitative inputs; the ability to think strategically, analyze critically, and to synthesize and articulate complex strategies in a simple, meaningful, jargon-free fashion.
• A proven relationship builder with a strong network in the real estate community.
• Ability to be constructively challenging, skillfully diplomatic, and to respectfully debate
• Experience constructing and executing investment and asset allocation strategies across a broad portfolio managed by a team.
• Ability to identify and manage risk within a portfolio.
• A demonstrated leader with the confidence and professional credibility to cultivate relationships with both internal and external constituents, and to make effective oral presentations, representing SMC in a highly professional manner
• Previous experience in managing,training, and, developing professionals who support investment decision making.

Personal Qualities
• Excellent judgment, high integrity and personal values consistent with values articulated by Stanford Management Company and Stanford University leaders.
• An energetic, hardworking individual with a proven track record as a collaborator.
• A high level of intellectual horsepower and curiosity.
• A team player who is easy to get along with and is comfortable working with a small team.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Impeccable character with high ethical and quality standards.
• Travel and person flexibility to contribute effectively to the operations of an investment team are required in this job
• An interest in supporting the work of a university endowment

Education
• Undergraduate degree required.
• MBA or CFA preferred.