CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER/MANAGING PARTNER

Andrew brings considerable experience in both corporate advisory (investment banking and private equity) and real estate, with a background around the U.S. and the world, across multiple asset classes, market cycles and situations as both principal and agent. He has operated, advised, or performed diligence on the capital raising, structuring or operations on over $4B worth of projects globally.

He has advised, supported or operated a number of companies in multiple industries, whether on behalf of investors and families, as portfolio investments, or in preparation for a strategic shift, acquisition, capital raise or valuation event. He has been involved in every aspect of designing and implementing businesses, from inception to mid-course handoff/takeover to turnaround and generally assumes day to day responsibility for the business, planning and executing long-term strategy, and sourcing managing human and financial capital.

• Spent 10 years at Lehman Brothers, the first five in the Office of the Chairman to design and implement multiple global strategic initiatives directly with Lehman’s firm-wide functional and division heads. In the second five-year period, worked as Chief Administrative Officer of the traditional wrap fee asset management business, and co-led efforts to develop group strategy and multi-year implementation plans for 1,100+ people globally. As head of the multi-billion dollar Separately Managed Accounts business, quickly tripled assets under management and expanded the client base in every U.S. office
• Assumed role of COO on 6 weeks’ notice to lead transformative change for a multi-strategy proprietary trading firm Quad Capital on behalf of Goldman Sachs alumni; replaced C-level heads of most functions, designed and built out two new trading floors, redesigned firm compensation and product mix, started a new FINRA broker dealer, and trading volume grew to over $100B annually
• As CIO for GILfund, transformed legacy real estate involvement from crowdfunding platforms to focus on aggregating several thousand units of single-family housing. Worked to syndicate capital raise on over $1B in Asian projects
• Chief Investment Officer to company structured as a joint venture for a national distribution of dental services and orthodonture rollout to over 1,000 locations nationally
• As COO of CAMS Global, re-positioned company from consultant on large civil projects to principal/developer of limited service hospitality and single-family housing in Zambia and Tanzania. Projects have become several companies with over $200mm projects throughout Africa
• As Managing Director of CPEX Real Estate, helped found a commercial sales and advisory firm during a severe market downturn; created substantial infrastructure, valuation training and marketing while underwriting and marketing over $300mm of projects. CPEX has a $2.5B+ track record in sales and advisory work focusing on middle market NYC borough deals
• As CFO of San Silencio, served as one of three partners to design, entitle and develop a $300mm resort with Jumeirah, which subsequently won an AIA Award of Excellence for an unbuilt project
• Spent several years with management consulting firm Marakon Associates (now Charles River Associates), designing and implementing value-based management strategies for Dow Chemical, American Express, Sanofi, and Universal Studios
• On Board of Directors for confidential company that is creating a “Bloomberg Terminal” for residential real estate arbitrage; Spring 2019 over 3,000 residential offers were extended in a little over 1,000 hours
• Advisor to confidential company on the use of Indian defense offset credits and advised on its proposed joint venture for the rollout of flight simulators and training and maintenance programs as well as military firearms training simulations

Mr. Lester earned a BA in Economics from Yale University where he won an award for combined academic and extracurricular performance and subsequently a Masters in Real Estate Development from NYU where he earned a Dean’s Graduate Fellowship. He is based in New York City and enjoys sailing, running and skiing and spending time with his wife and 7 children. He has been an active resource to families impacted by autism since 2007 and has competed in a number of road races and triathlons.