Uncategorized Archives - Prime Finance

Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson is a Professor of History at Tulane University and an advisory partner at Perella Weinberg, a financial services firm based in New York City. He has been the CEO of the Aspen Institute, the CEO of CNN, and the editor of Time magazine.

Isaacson’s most recent biography, Elon Musk (2023), is an intimate chronicle based on spending two years by Musk’s side. He is also the author of The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race (2021), Leonardo da Vinci (2017), The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (2014), Steve Jobs (2011), Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), and Kissinger: A Biography (1992), and coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986). His latest book, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written (Simon & Schuster, 2025), explores the phrase “We hold these truths to be selfevident” from the Declaration of Independence, how it was crafted and why it remains relevant today.

Isaacson is a host of the show Amanpour and Company on PBS and CNN, a contributor to CNBC, and the host of the podcast Trailblazers from Dell Technologies.

Born on May 20, 1952, in New Orleans, Isaacson is a graduate of Harvard College and Pembroke College of Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He began his career at The Sunday Times of London and then the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He joined TIME in 1978 and became the magazine’s 14th editor in 1996. He became CEO of CNN in 2001 and the CEO of the Aspen Institute in 2003.

He is chair emeritus of Teach for America. From 2005–2007, he was vice-chair of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which oversaw rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. He was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which runs Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other international broadcasts of the United States. He has also served on the U.S. Defense Innovation Board.

In 2023, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Joe Biden. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of the Arts, and the American Philosophical Society. He serves on the board of United Airlines and Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Mark Zandi

Mark Zandi is chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, where he directs economic research. Moody’s Analytics, a subsidiary of Moody’s Corp., is a leading provider of economic research, data and analytical tools. Dr. Zandi cofounded Economy.com, which Moody’s purchased in 2005.

Dr. Zandi is on the board of directors of MGIC, the nation’s largest private mortgage insurance company, is the lead director of PolicyMap, a data visualization and analytics company used by policymakers and commercial businesses, and is a director of the Coleridge Initiative, a nonprofit that facilitates the exchange of data across governments.

He is a trusted adviser to policymakers and an influential source of economic analysis for businesses, journalists and the public. Dr. Zandi frequently testifies before Congress and conducts regular briefings on the economy for corporate boards, trade associations and policymakers at all levels.

Dr. Zandi is the author of Paying the Price: Ending the Great Recession and Beginning a New American Century, which assesses the monetary and fiscal policy response to the Great Recession. His other book, Financial Shock: A 360º Look at the Subprime Mortgage Implosion, and How to Avoid the Next Financial Crisis, is described by The New York Times as the “clearest guide” to the financial crisis. Dr. Zandi is host of the Inside Economics podcast.

Dr. Zandi earned his BS from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania.

Livingston Long

Managing Director, Special Situations

Mr. Long is a Managing Director in Prime Finance’s Special Situations group where he focuses on sourcing, underwriting, negotiating, and structuring debt and equity investments across all asset types and geographies. Prior to joining Prime Finance, Mr. Long was a Vice President in Wells Fargo’s Corporate & Investment Bank where he focused primarily on balance sheet and CMBS financings. Earlier in his career, Mr. Long was a member of the capital markets group where he advised mortgage REITs and real estate debt funds on a variety of securitization-related transactions. Mr. Long graduated with a B.A. in Economics and B.S. in Human & Organizational Development from Vanderbilt University and holds an M.S. in Commerce (Finance Concentration) from the University of Virginia.

Lyndsay Stephenson

Managing Director, CMBS Investments

Ms. Stephenson is a Managing Director in Prime Finance’s CMBS Investments group in New York where she is responsible for the sourcing and credit selection of new-issue CMBS B-pieces. Prior to joining Prime Finance, Ms. Stephenson was a Vice President at Starwood Mortgage Capital in its credit and underwriting group. During her five-year tenure at Starwood, Ms. Stephenson underwrote over 140 CMBS loans with an aggregate face value of $1.65 billion. Earlier in her career, Ms. Stephenson worked at RREEF America, L.L.C., focused on sourcing, underwriting, and asset managing mezzanine and B-note investments for transitional properties and she began her career at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she was involved with the valuation of regional shopping malls. Ms. Stephenson is currently on the CREFC Board of Governors and previously served as CREFC’s Chair of the B-Piece Buyer Forum and on the Women’s Network Professional Development Committee. Ms. Stephenson graduated from the University of Connecticut with a B.S. in Real Estate and Urban Economic Studies.

Lauren Dieter

Managing Director, Deputy Chief Investment Officer, Mortgage Lending

Ms. Dieter is a Managing Director in the Chicago office and focuses on credit and portfolio construction across our bridge lending strategy and is a member of the Short Duration Investment Committee. Ms. Dieter has originated, underwritten, and closed more than 140 investments for the firm totaling over $5.9 billion. Prior to joining Prime Finance, Ms. Dieter was an Associate Managing Director at The PrivateBank and Trust. In her role at PrivateBank, she managed a portfolio of distressed commercial mortgage loans and REO properties. Before The PrivateBank, she was an underwriter and asset manager at Anglo Irish Chicago Corp. Ms. Dieter graduated with Honors from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University in Bloomington and was a member of the IU varsity soccer team.

Christina Romer

Christina Romer is Professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). She is a specialist in economic history and macroeconomics, and is best known for her work on the causes of the Great Depression and on the conduct and effects of macroeconomic policy.

Professor Romer served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers from January 2009 to September 2010. In that role, she helped formulate the response to the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent recession, and contributed to the development and passage of President Obama’s health reform legislation. She was co-director of the Program in Monetary Economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research from 2003 to 2008 and from 2010 to 2018, and is a member of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee. She recently completed terms as president of both the American Economic Association and the Western Economic Association International.

Professor Romer graduated from the College of William & Mary and received her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a distinguished fellow of the American Economic Association, and recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of California, Berkeley and the Council for Economic Education Visionary Award.

Ian Bremmer

Ian Bremmer is a political scientist who helps business leaders, policymakers, and the general public make sense of the world around them.

He is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, the leading geopolitical risk advisory firm, and GZERO Media, providing intelligent and engaging coverage of international affairs. Ian is an independent voice on critical issues around the globe, offering clearheaded insights through speeches, written commentary, and even satirical puppets (really!).

Ian is credited with bringing the craft of political risk to financial markets, creating Wall Street’s first global political risk index (GPRI), and for establishing political risk as an academic discipline. His definition of emerging markets—“those countries where politics matters at least as much as economics for market outcomes”—has become an industry standard. “G-Zero,” his term for a global power vacuum in which no country is willing and able to set the international agenda, is widely used by policymakers and thought leaders.

A prolific writer, Ian is the author of eleven books, including The New York Times bestsellers Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism, which examines the rise of populism across the world, and his latest book, The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats—and Our Response—Will Change the World, which details a trio of looming global crises (health emergencies, climate change, and technological revolution) and outlines their potential to create global prosperity and opportunity.
Ian serves as rapporteur of the UN High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence and is the foreign affairs columnist and editor at large for Time magazine. He is the host of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, a global affairs program that airs weekly on US public television. Ian is also a frequent guest on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and many other news outlets globally.

Ian earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in political science from Stanford University, where he went on to become the youngest-ever national fellow at the Hoover Institution. He received his bachelor’s degree in international relations from Tulane University. He currently teaches at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and previously was a professor at New York University.

Ian established Eurasia Group with just $25,000 in 1998. Today, the company has offices in New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, London, Tokyo, Singapore, São Paulo, and Brasilia, as well as a network of experts and resources in 90 countries.

He lives in New York City with his wife Ann and their wily Norfolk Terrier, Moose.

Chris R. Miers

Managing Director, Head of Investor Relationships

Mr. Miers is a Managing Director and Head of Investor Relationships, responsible for Prime Finance’s investor relationships and capital raising. Prior to joining Prime Finance, Mr. Miers was a Principal at NEPC, a privately held full-service investment consulting firm, where he negotiated and structured investment products and portfolios for a wide range of institutional investors. Prior to NEPC, Mr. Miers provided strategic investment counsel to some of the world’s largest institutional investors as a Principal at Bard Consulting. Earlier, Mr. Miers worked at Babcock & Brown, where he identified and invested in target markets, performed due diligence, originated new and restructured existing investments, and managed partner relationships. Mr. Miers was also in the investment management group at the Shorenstein Company, where he performed fund management services. Prior to that, he was at AMB Property Corporation (now Prologis) working in various roles, including asset and portfolio management, acquisitions, and fundraising. Mr. Miers holds a B.S from Babson College and a J.D. from Golden Gate University. Mr. Miers is a Counselor of Real Estate (CRE), where he is on the Board of Directors, and a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS). He is also a member of the Pension Real Estate Association (PREA) Conference Committee and serves as Co-Chair of the PREA Capital Markets Affinity Group.

Jeff Lehman

Principal, Head of Legal for Investment Strategies

Mr. Lehman is a Principal and Head of Legal for Investment Strategies where he is primarily responsible for structuring, negotiating, and managing all legal aspects of originations, financing, and asset management of investments across Prime Finance’s investment strategies. Prior to joining Prime Finance, Mr. Lehman was a Managing Director in the merchant banking group of BGC Partners, Inc. and Senior Legal Counsel at Hypo Real Estate Capital Corporation. Previously, Mr. Lehman practiced law at Sidley Austin LLP and Proskauer Rose LLP. Mr. Lehman graduated with honors from Brandeis University with a B.A.in Economics and received a J.D. with honors from Brooklyn Law School.

Jordan May

Director, CMBS Investments

Mr. May is a Director in Prime Finance’s CMBS Investments group in New York where he is responsible for investing and loan asset management of CMBS B-Pieces. Prior to joining Prime, Mr. May worked within the Capital Markets and CMBS Originations groups at KeyBank in Overland Park, KS. Mr. May is currently a member of Prime Finance’s Environmental, Social, and Governance committee and CREFC’s sustainability committee. Mr. May is actively involved in the community as a Leadership Council member for The Nature Conservancy in New York and Chair of the Associates Council for Let’s Get Ready. Mr. May received a B.A. in Finance from Kansas State University and is currently pursuing his M.B.A. at Columbia University.

Trever Koek

Director, Special Situations Asset Management

Mr. Koek is a Director of Asset Management responsible for the ongoing asset management and servicing of Prime Finance’s Special Situations portfolio. Prior to joining Prime Finance, Mr. Koek was a Director at NXT Capital, where he was responsible for managing a portfolio of middle market commercial mortgage loans and joint venture equity investments. Earlier in his career, Mr. Koek held various positions in originations, credit analysis, and underwriting at BB&T Real Estate Funding and Merrill Lynch Capital. Mr. Koek holds a B.B.A. in Finance, Investments, and Banking from the University of Wisconsin –Madison and a joint J.D./M.B.A from DePaul University’s College of Law & Graduate School of Business.

Matthew Bregenzer

Principal, Head of Asset Management

Mr. Bregenzer is a Principal and responsible for the ongoing asset management and servicing of Prime Finance’s loan portfolio. Prior to joining Prime Finance, Mr. Bregenzer was a Vice President at Nomura Credit & Capital, Inc. In his role as head underwriter for the Midwest region, he was responsible for managing a team of analysts to underwrite commercial real estate loans for securitization or to be placed on the firm’s balance sheet. In addition to overseeing the due diligence process, he also coordinated the loan closing process with Nomura’s closing staff and outside counsel. Prior to joining Nomura, Mr. Bregenzer was an underwriter in LaSalle Bank’s Real Estate Capital Markets’ Large Loan Group where his responsibilities included rating agency and B-Piece buyer relations. Mr. Bregenzer is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington.

Stephen Chow

Principal, Head of Capital Markets, Analytics, and Trading

Mr. Chow is a Principal, Head of Capital Markets, Analytics, and Trading, and serves on the Investment Committee for the CMBS Opportunities strategy. Mr. Chow is responsible for Prime Finance’s financing and capital markets activity including overseeing the financing of the Fund’s assets, facilitating joint ventures, and structuring participation and senior/subordinate investments. In addition, Mr. Chow sources and evaluates investment opportunities in secondary markets and assists in modeling and risk analytics. Prior to joining Prime Finance, Mr. Chow was a Portfolio Manager at UBS, responsible for the trading, surveillance, and risk management of a multi-billion portfolio consisting of cash and synthetic CMBS, CRE CDO, Esoteric ABS, Insurance-Linked, and ABS CDO securities. Prior to his Portfolio Manager position, he held various trading, structuring, banking, and research roles within the Securitized Products Groups at UBS and Credit Suisse. Mr. Chow graduated from Cornell University with a B.A. in Computer Science and a B.A. in Economics.

Luke Dann

Principal, Head of CMBS Investments

Mr. Dann is Prime Finance’s Head of CMBS Investments in New York. Mr. Dann began his career in CMBS in 1997 working at LNR Property Corp, one of the largest and oldest CMBS investors and special servicers. At LNR, Mr. Dann oversaw all credit functions including loan originations, B-Piece buying and secondary trading. Prior to joining LNR, Mr. Dann worked in investment banking for Citigroup in New York City. Mr. Dann received a B.A. in Government from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. from the University of Miami. Mr. Dann has been very involved with the CMBS trade group CREFC and active member of the New Hampshire chapter of The Nature Conservancy.

Erik Gutman

Principal, Head of Mortgage Lending

Mr. Gutman is a Principal, Head of Mortgage Lending, and a member of the Investment Committees for the Short Duration strategy. Mr. Gutman also shares responsibility for Prime Finance’s financing and capital markets activity. Prior to joining Prime Finance, Mr. Gutman held various Real Estate Capital Markets and Real Estate Investment Banking roles with Citi, Macquarie ABN AMRO/LaSalle Bank and Fitch Ratings. Mr. Gutman completed the General Course at The London School of Economics and Political Science, graduated with honors from The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a B.S.in Finance and has an M.B.A. from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management.

Seth Fisher

Principal, Head of Special Situations

Mr. Fisher is a Principal and Head of Special Situations and a member of the Special Situations Investment Committee. Prior to joining Prime Finance, Mr. Fisher was the Chief Investment Officer of Equity Investments for Starwood Property Trust’s REIS segment (“Starwood”), where he led a business focused on middle-market investment opportunities arising from Starwood’s CMBS exposure and other commercial real estate related special situations. Executing and managing dozens of investments through nonperforming loan acquisitions and direct equity investments in underperforming real estate, Mr. Fisher oversaw all aspects of the acquisition, investment and asset management processes. He was also responsible for the business’ joint venture partnerships and capital markets activities. Prior to this role at Starwood, Mr. Fisher held various positions across predecessor business lines at LNR Property, including roles in credit investment activities, note sales and loan workouts. Mr. Fisher graduated with a B.S. in Economics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Steven Gerstung

Co-Founder, Co-Chief Investment Officer, and Oversees Short Duration
Mr. Gerstung is a Co-Founding Partner of Prime Finance, Co-Chief Investment Officer and a member of the Investment Committees for each strategy. Mr. Gerstung leads the Chicago office and oversees the Short Duration strategy. Prior to forming Prime Finance, Mr. Gerstung was a Managing Director and the Head of Distribution for Natixis, where he was responsible for the structuring and sale of subordinate debt. Mr. Gerstung started his career at Nomura Securities after graduating cum laude from Harvard University with a B.A. in Economics.

Jon Brayshaw

Co-Founder and Oversees Capital Markets, Legal, and Operations

Mr. Brayshaw is a Co-Founding Partner of Prime Finance and a member of the Investment Committees Investment Committees for each strategy. Mr. Brayshaw leads the New York office where he oversees Capital Markets and Legal Strategy for the entire platform and focuses on New Business Development. Prior to forming Prime Finance, Mr. Brayshaw was a Managing Director at Natixis, where he was involved in negotiating, structuring, and closing commercial real estate loan transactions. Prior to Natixis, Mr. Brayshaw practiced law in New York at Kaye Scholer LLP. Mr. Brayshaw is a graduate of Bates College and the Fordham University School of Law.

Scott Douglas

Co-Founder, Co-Chief Investment Officer, and Oversees CMBS and Special Situations

Mr. Douglass is a Co-Founding Partner of Prime Finance, Co-Chief Investment Officer, and a member of Investment Committees for each strategy. Mr. Douglass leads the San Francisco office, oversees the CMBS and Special Situations strategies. Prior to forming Prime Finance, Mr. Douglass was a Managing Director for Natixis, responsible for the pricing, structuring, and execution of all commercial real estate loans intended for securitization. Mr. Douglass started his career at Nomura Securities as part of the CMBS group, after graduating with Honors from Brown University with a B.A. degree in Business Economics and Organizational Behavior and Management.

John Atwater

Co-Founder, Managing Partner, and Oversees Capital Formation
Mr. Atwater is a Co-Founding Partner of Prime Finance and a member of the Investment Committees Investment Committees for each strategy. Mr. Atwater founded Prime Group in 1989 and is Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Prime Group. Mr. Atwater has been involved with all forms of property ownership, management, and financing. A graduate of Brown University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, he has served on a variety of for-profit and non-profit boards, including Montgomery Street Income Securities, Lone Mountain School for Children, The Hamlin School, The California Academy of Sciences (Board Chair 2010-2014), the Corporation of Brown University and the Policy Advisory Board of the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, UC Berkeley.