CREFC Center for Real Estate Finance Announces Fifth Annual CREFC Scholars Recipients

CREFC and NYU scholarship program celebrates the next generation of CRE professionals

NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The CRE Finance Council (CREFC) and the Schack Institute of Real Estate at The NYU School of Professional Studies today announced their 2024-2025 CREFC Scholars. This year's CREFC Scholars recipients are Camila Avila, an incoming graduate student, and Benjamin Pisarenko and Ren Yu, two senior undergraduate students.

The CREFC Center for Real Estate Finance at the Schack Institute and the CREFC Endowment Committee based their decisions on factors such as academic excellence, leadership potential, a career focus on commercial real estate finance, and a demonstrated commitment to enhancing diversity and inclusion in the industry.

In addition to receiving a merit scholarship, CREFC Scholars are granted complimentary CREFC Academic membership with access to CREFC's Resource Center and Career Center, as well as all CREFC programming. Scholarship recipients may apply for CREFC's mentorship program, which pairs students with industry mentors. Also, recipients have access to networking opportunities and are invited to attend CREFC's major conferences.

Executive Director Lisa Pendergast noted:

"We salute this year's CREFC Scholars Program recipients and their early accomplishments in real estate finance," said Lisa Pendergast, Executive Director of CREFC. "Now in its fifth year, our program offers a host of professional development, mentorship, and educational opportunities in the commercial real estate capital markets. We look forward to continuing to work with the Schack Institute and foster a new generation of professionals who offer diversity to the industry and fresh ideas that will help CRE finance grow and flourish."

Launched in 2020, the CREFC Center for Real Estate Finance at the Schack Institute is a hub for industry collaboration on research initiatives, novel programming, and student engagement. This venture is supported by an endowment gift to NYU from CREFC. In addition to student scholarships, CREFC's gift allows for an industry-leading certificate program for CREFC members, a CREFC-focused class each semester available to all CREFC members, and a Fellowship program, with two CREFC members chosen as fellows bi-annually.

For more information about the CREFC Center for Real Estate Finance at the Schack Institute, visit: CREFC Center for Real Estate Finance.

Graduate Student
Camila Avila
Camila Avila is pursuing a Master of Science in Real Estate at the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate. Camila, who grew up in Cartagena, Colombia, holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics and a Master of Science in Economics at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia. As a senior investment analyst at Proaltus Capital Partners, she conducted financial analysis for a portfolio of South Florida multifamily developments and managed due diligence for the acquisition of residential and mixed-use properties while supervising their development. At PadSplit, Camila was a real estate acquisitions analyst where she performed financial modeling and analysis for real estate fund acquisitions and dispositions. Camila has also worked as a real estate market specialist at Davivienda Corredores and she was a real estate market research analyst at JLL. Camila said she wants to leverage the resources of the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate and the CREFC Scholars program to deepen her knowledge of international real estate markets while expanding her professional network with CREFC's Women's Network. Camila, who has sought out employers that champion diversity, says her first-hand experience with Colombia's diverse socioeconomic realities fueled an interest in understanding inequality and prompted her to study economics. Camila said she wants to bring investment opportunities to Colombia that enable Latin American families to participate in international real estate markets. 

Undergraduate Students
Benjamin Pisarenko
Ben Pisarenko is a senior at the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate where he will earn a Bachelor of Science in real estate. As an intern at Macquarie Asset Management this summer Ben rotated between the Acquisitions, Asset Management, and Portfolio Management teams. Last year, Ben was a summer intern at CBRE where he worked on the Retail Leasing team in New York City. He has also interned at Colliers, conducting tenant research and market analysis of office properties in Westchester County, N.Y. At Exodus Capital, where he was a commercial real estate intern, Ben underwrote valuations of New York City multifamily, industrial, and office properties and created marketing materials for listed properties. Ben is on the Dean's List at NYU Schack and is a recipient of the ICSC Foundation Schurgin Family Foundation Scholarship Award. In his role as vice president of the NYU Schack Undergraduate Real Estate Club, Ben has organized and led site tours and arranged speaker and career development events for students interested in real estate. Also, he has led charity events at various financial institutions and co-founded Corporate Kindness, a subsidiary of Bake Back America, a non-profit charity.

Ren Yu
Ren Yu is a senior at the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate where he will earn a Bachelor of Science in Real Estate Finance. As a student, Ren is involved with the Schack Real Estate Club, the Stern Real Estate Group, and the Philosophy Club. Ren's early professional experience includes work as a summer analyst at Pondmoon Capital where he worked on the development of a 220-unit rental apartment in San Diego as well as the acquisition and refinance of a 73-unit multifamily property in Brooklyn, N.Y. Ren has also co-founded YXY Group, a small lender that provides financing to borrowers overlooked by large banks. This start-up has seen $12 million in loan volume largely made possible by Ren's network of brokers, real estate agents, and bankers. Ren began his career in real estate as an insulation laborer at Broadtrade Group, where he would later work as a project manager assistant with the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing construction team on the Victoria Theater Redevelopment project in New York City.

For a look at previous recipients of the CREFC Scholars program, visit: CREFC Scholars.

The CRE Finance Council (CREFC) is the trade association for the nearly $6 trillion commercial real estate finance industry with a membership that includes approximately 400 companies and 19,000 individuals. Member firms include balance sheet and securitized lenders, loan and bond investors, private equity firms, servicers, rating agencies, and borrowers. For 30 years, CREFC has promoted liquidity, transparency, and efficiency in the commercial real estate finance markets, and acted as a legislative and regulatory advocate for the industry, playing a vital role in setting market standards and best practices, and providing education for market participants.

SOURCE CRE Finance Council