Get to know Jordan Ray of Mission Capital Advisors

Describe how you chose your profession and how you have succeeded in this industry? I always liked the real estate business. When I was younger I had a lot of friends whose families were in the business and I developed an interest in it at an early age. Then I got an internship when I was in graduate school at another firm doing what I do now and I fell in love with structuring deals. I have had the opportunity to work on some very complicated deals at a young age and be exposed to some very high level professionals and develop relationships on the capital side and just sticking with it. I'm only 33 but I've been doing this for 11 years now. At a certain point you figure out what you are good at. What are your proudest accomplishments in the past couple years and what are you looking forward to in 2013, in a personal or business sense? What we have established at Mission Capital created our new team really from scratch. I think we are recognized for our reputation in the marketplace. I am looking forward to the continued growth of our company which I have tremendous pride in. How is the market doing, from your perspective? We have been very active. We have been very busy on both the residential and hospitality side of the business and doing a lot of work in the outer boroughs like Brooklyn. We think CMBS is obviously coming back and a lot of opportunities for us in this market. Describe something exciting that just happened at your company. We were able to hire some high-level personnel from competing firms. They believe in the foundation that we have created. We also closed on some very interesting transactions lately including raising capital for a land and pre-development loan in Miami again which is interesting because we have not done that for years. Also we did a couple of very high profile condominium projects in New York. If you could use one word to describe your work environment, what would it be? Open. We have no walls, sit at desks, share information and work in a very close knit team. Describe a typical day at your company. They're never the same. I am generally up at client's offices or in other cities meeting with folks. That's just my side of the business, but we have a team in the office who are working on underwriting transactions and coming up with creative ways to get them financed. So there's a lot of banter about transactions, market intel and client meetings. What are the ups and downs in your business? When the world turned last there wasn't much to do at my old firm. It got really quiet. There wasn't much transaction volume at all. That is why I was attracted to join Mission where it was very busy in a down market because of the loan sale side. It's a very cyclical business and you have to position yourself to have business both in an up and down market. Jordan Ray is a managing director of the debt and equity advisory group at Mission Capital Advisors, New York, N.Y.