Gary Chen is from San Mateo, CA, and grew up in the Bay Area. At a young age, he wanted to travel the world and spent over 20 years studying, working, and living abroad throughout Asia and visiting over a dozen countries during that time. In 2014 he relocated back to his hometown of San Mateo, CA.

Gary has a background as a real estate developer representing buy-side large-cap listed MNC, Family Offices, and Funds with a focus on acquisitions and capital markets for commercial, multifamily, hospitality, industrial, life science, and mixed-use properties. As the lead acquisitions executive, his role included site selection, due diligence, negotiations, entitlements for developments projects or asset management for core, core+, value add, and repositioning asset purchases. Gary has acquired over $350m in assets in California, New York, and New Jersey.

In Capital Markets, his role required him to manage 90% of the capital stack and raise outside investment on behalf of Sponsors through GP/LP Equity, Preferred Equity, Mezzanine Debt, Bridge Loans, Corporate Bonds, Structured Finance as well as Construction Debt to fund various project needs. He’s raised over $500m on behalf of real estate developers including both equity and debt covering multiple states including California, New York, New Jersey, Georgia, and Florida. His background as a developer allows him to quickly identify Sponsor funding needs, streamline the decision-making process, match the right capital partners, and negotiate ideal rates and terms.

Gary is licensed with Department of Real Estate in California, with a Bachelors Degree in International Economics/Foreign Exchange Program from Peking University and is bilingual English and Mandarin.

Away from work he enjoys outdoorsman lifestyle and likes being on the road traveling and exploring new cities and cultures or revisiting favorite destinations including Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, London, New York, Las Vegas to name a few. When not on the road he enjoys gym fitness, basketball, swimming, football, skiing, movies, reading and chess.