Managing Director – REPE Firm
In this ‘Day in the Life of a Commercial Real Estate Professional’ post, we hear from Anar Chudgar, Managing Director and Head of Income and Growth working at a real estate private equity firm in New York City. Anar has been kind enough to share her typical daily routine and discuss what it takes to land a successful career in CRE investing.
Note: This Day in the Life profile was made possible thanks to the help of Emily White, a Class of 2022 MBA Candidate at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. Prior to pursuing her MBA, Emily was a Development Manager for the Alpha Gamma Delta Fraternity Housing Corporation. Emily holds a BA in History from the University of South Carolina. A huge thank you to Emily for her contribution!
Day in the Life of a Managing Director
Current Firm
Anar Chudgar
Artemis Real Estate Partners is a female-founded real estate investment management firm headquartered in Washington, DC with additional offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. Artemis has approximately $5.6 billion of AUM across the core, core plus, value-add, and opportunistic strategies. The firm makes equity and debt investments with a focus on multifamily, office, industrial, retail, hospitality, seniors housing, and medical office. Artemis specializes in joint venture partnerships and direct investments.
Early Career Path
Anar started her college career at Birmingham-Southern College where she discovered a love for business through economics classes and studying abroad in Amsterdam. After chatting with a family relation who was an investment banker at Salomon Smith Barney, now Citibank, she realized she wanted to work on Wall Street and transferred to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
After graduating, Anar took a job at JP Morgan and was matched with the real estate group. Unsure she wanted to specialize, she realized within two months she loved the tangibility of real estate and stayed with the group honing her quantitative acumen. After two years, Anar moved to iStar when they began equity investing, drawn to its entrepreneurial aspects and the opportunity to learn how to evaluate deals.
A year later she got the opportunity to start an opportunistic fund, a higher returning fund that invested in all asset classes in North America, for Onex Corp. Anar remained there during the Great Financial Crisis and learned critical skills like evaluating and mitigating risk and adapting both professionally and personally during her tenure.
In 2010, she had the opportunity to start a business within Credit Suisse to focus on middle-market real estate investing. Anar credits this as the best decision of her career. She co-headed the business and grew it to $3 billion dollars over a period of 9 years while having two kids. During this time the business was sold to GCM Grosvenor where she continued working until 2019.
After speaking at a large real estate event, Anar received several job offers which led her to evaluate what she wanted in the future. She decided aligning herself with an investment firm that valued diversity through background and perspective was important to her, as well as a seat at the decision-making table. One of her mentors, and co-founder of Artemis Partners, asked her to join the firm and run the New York office which she accepted.
Main Responsibilities
For Anar, Mondays are Investment Committee days with back-to-back meetings. These include reports on how each investment vehicle is performing, prioritizing fund goals and deals, asset management meetings, and operations meetings. Prior to the pandemic, she traveled weekly to visit assets and meet investors. Post pandemic she believes her travel will be reduced.
During the rest of the week, Anar is working on deals. This includes screening new deals, evaluating whether they are worth her team’s time, and meeting with lenders. Additionally, she frequently meets with new and current investors to keep them updated. Recently she also worked on establishing a new debt vehicle for Artemis, which launched last year. Moreover, she reads constantly to identify new trends and strategies the fund can employ. On top of all that, she also manages the New York office.
About the Professional
Name: Anar Chudgar
Location: New York, New York
Years in Real Estate: 18
Years in Current Position: 2
Undergraduate Education: B.S. in Economics from University of Pennsylvania
Graduate Education: n/a
About the Position
Job Title: Managing Director, Head of Income and Growth
Job Type: Firm Strategy, Deal Execution, Asset Management
Company Name: Artemis Real Estate Partners
Company Type: Real Estate Private Equity
Property Type: Multifamily, office, industrial, retail, hospitality, senior housing, medical office
Min. Education Recommended: Bachelors’ Degree
Min. Education Required: Bachelors’ Degree
Min. Experience Recommended: 10-15
Min. Experience Required: None
Advanced Technical Skills Required: MS Excel
Advice for those interested in this position
Successful Traits
From Anar’s experience, a person with a successful investment career has strong quantitative skills, “know your fundamentals, if you hone that skillset and show your confidence in it, no one is ever going to doubt you.” A strong work ethic, being proactive, a positive attitude, and patience are also important.
Advice
“Personal and professional relationships matter,” looking back to her early career, Anar wishes she had spent more time investing in her relationships with others rather than being focused on deliverables. She recommends taking time to maintain your relationships and develop new ones so you can expand your network and build your brand.
Anar also recommends working globally if you have the opportunity. She has found working on global projects provides an important perspective about risk and reward and can help you better understand different investor perspectives.
