As part of AFIRE’s core mission to help each other become Better Investors, Better Leaders, and Better Global Citizens, the association offers a multi-generational mentorship program aimed at shaping and diversifying the future of leadership in commercial real estate.
The AFIRE Mentorship Program is an annual fellowship program and forms relationships between three primary groups:
- C-suite Executives—presidents, chairpeople, CEOs, CIOs, and other executive leaders with decades of industry leadership
- Rising Leaders—mid-level real estate and investment leaders set to transform the C-suite over the next decade
- Future Leaders—typically graduate and MBA students, and early-career professionals, from diverse backgrounds
AFIRE Mentorship Program participants are connected into “mentorship families,” each comprised of one Future Leader (mentee); one Rising Leader (mentee/mentor); and one C-suite Executive (mentor).
Since the program’s launch in 2020, participants have included MIT, Georgetown, University of North Carolina, Oxford, Columbia University, and Notre Dame, in partnership with leaders from across AFIRE member companies.
Karen is the head of acquisitions for Allianz Real Estate, and has worked to invest in more than $25 billion of unlisted institutional real estate over the past 20 years. The first half of her career was oriented toward closed-end value-add and opportunistic fund investments in office, retail and multi-family assets across continental Europe. Since 2011, Karen has primarily focused on core and core-plus commercial investments in US gateway markets.
