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managing partner & trustee
PARTNER
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Vice President
Associate
Associate
CONTROLLER
Director, Investor relations Quebec
Executive Assistant
Vice President, Operations, CSL
Director, Operations, CSL
Partner, Campus Assets
CHAIR of the board trustees and trustee
Trustee
Trustee
Trustee
© 2023 Alignvest Student Housing Inc.
Sanjil Shah is the Managing Partner of Alignvest Student Housing and serves on its Board of Trustees. Mr. Shah is also a Managing Partner of Alignvest Management Corporation and serves as a director on the board of The Avid Group. Mr. Shah also currently serves as a director on the boards of Scarborough Health Network and Transforming Faces.
Mr. Shah was previously the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of StorageNow Holdings, a self-storage business that acquired, developed and operated properties across Canada. Prior to joining StorageNow, Mr. Shah was a Senior Manager at KPMG LLP. Mr. Shah has also been an instructor at York University’s Schulich School of Business, the University of Toronto and with the Chartered Accountants of Ontario’s School of Accountancy.
Mr. Shah holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto, and is a CPA, CA.
Ms. MacPherson most recently ran an independent consulting business and spent 14 years with Canadian Apartment Properties REIT (“CAPREIT”) as Executive Vice President, Operations and Vice President, Sales and Marketing. Ms. MacPherson’s responsibilities included revenue management, leasing and marketing, investor relations, customer experience, commercial and field operations, and new-build development for CAPREIT’s portfolio of residential rental suites and manufactured home sites across Canada, the Netherlands and Ireland.
Prior to CAPREIT, Ms. MacPherson worked in public relations, and sales and marketing in diverse industries such as pharmaceuticals, software, and consulting and accounting firms. Additionally, Ms. MacPherson currently acts as a mentor for Toronto CREW and sits on the advisory board of a real estate software company. Ms. MacPherson received her BScH from Queens University and her MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at Western University.
Ms. Chan was previously the Controller since joining Alignvest in 2013. Prior to joining Alignvest, Ms. Chan was a Manager at Ernst & Young LLP, a global professional services firm, where she specialized in providing audit and advisory services to clients in the financial services industry, specifically asset management companies.
Ms. Chan is a CPA, CA and holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Finance from the University of Toronto.
Prior to Alignvest, David worked at Marlin Spring and North American Development Group, where he was involved in the acquisition of over $750 million of income-producing and development properties across a variety of asset classes, including Multi-Family Residential, Office and Retail.
Mr. Choran earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from Wilfrid Laurier University.
Andrew joined the Alignvest team in October of 2023 and is responsible for evaluating new investment opportunities and providing asset management oversight for Alignvest Student Housing REIT and Campus Assets Inc.
Prior to Alignvest, Andrew worked at Centurion Asset Management and was a dual employee of Minto Apartment REIT and Minto Properties, where he was involved in transaction of over $900 million of multi-residential, student housing and commercial assets by way of acquisition, development or debt financing.
Andrew holds a Master of Arts in Economics from Wilfrid Laurier University and is a CFA Charterholder.
Rohan is responsible for evaluating new investment opportunities and providing development oversight for Alignvest Student Housing REIT and Campus Assets Inc.
Prior to Alignvest, Rohan worked at BMO Capital Markets in their real estate investment banking group, involved in both property brokerage and capital markets transactions, as well as Desjardins’ real estate investments team, executing multi-residential and industrial transactions exceeding $750 million by way of acquisition and full cycle development.
Rohan holds an HBA with distinction from Ivey Business School.
Ali joined Alignvest in January 2023 and is actively involved in all aspects of Alignvest Student Housing’s accounting, reporting and taxation. Prior to joining Alignvest, Ali was a Fund Controller at Montez Corp, an integrated multi-asset real estate investment, developer and asset manager investing on behalf of institutional investors, where he specialized in preparation of financial statements of development and Income-producing properties, implementation of Yardi voyager 7s, and preparation of the finance slides for the mid-year / annual investors presentation deck.
Ali is a CPA, CGA, CPA (Maine, US), FCCA (UK), Chartered Accountant (Pakistan) and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Punjab.
Lyes’ experience focused over the last 8 years on building relationships with discretionary investment advisors, and Family Offices. Prior to join Alignvest, he was Vice-President at Evolve ETFs, Senior Business Development Manager and Team Lead at Horizons ETFs one of the largest ETFs providers in Canada, and business development manager working at a large mutual fund dealer now part of Purpose. He gained a deep experience in the ETF world in investment review of client portfolios. Identifying strategic opportunities by helping advisors, portfolio managers, and family offices to build portfolios more suitable to their risk/reward needs.
He brings to Alignvest a vast experience in asset allocation combining various asset classes, and a solid understanding of quantitative finance. Lyes is quadrilingual (English, French, Spanish, Arabic) and holds a B.Com, and a Master’s in finance from ESAA partner of HEC Paris, ESCP Europe elite business schools. He is also a CFA Charterholder and was nominated as Canada’s 2023 Top 50 Fundraiser 2023 by Wealth Professional
Shiela joined Alignvest in 2023 as Executive Support to Sanjil Shah. She has excelled as an administrative professional for over 10 years. Prior to joining Alignvest, she was the Office and HR Manager at Espresso Capital. Shiela earned an advanced diploma in Business Administration – Management from Seneca College.
Bradley Williams is the Vice President, Operations at Canadian Student Living. Since joining CSL, Mr. Williams has overseen all capital projects including the rollout of our new lock system weare working to implement across the portfolio, numerous mechanical system upgrades, large scale furniture replacements across the portfolio, as well as many other smaller projects.
With expertise in contract negotiation and a strong supplier network, he has persistently realized 10-20% savings throughout each of these capital projects. Mr. Williams also assists in overseeing market
research, budget and rent analysis and operational review for current and new acquisitions, as well as development projects. Prior to Canadian Student Living, Mr. Williams worked at CHC Student Housing as VP, Operations. In this role, Mr. Williams oversaw all operations for both the public and private companies, and regularly conducted due diligence for new acquisitions and potential development projects.
With a 20+ year history in student housing, Mr. Williams has an extensive experience in all areas of the industry. Mr. Williams holds a Bachelor of Science from Colorado State University and a Master’s Degree from Western Illinois University in College Student Personnel graduated with Honours.
Amanda Kalbfleisch is the Director, Operations at Canadian Student Living. Since joining CSL in 2019, Ms. Kalbfleisch provides assistance and support for property management where needed; including improving operational efficiencies and managing special projects. Ms. Kalbfleisch leads ASH’s ESG strategy and implementation, helps develop the annual report, and provides market analysis and due diligence support for new acquisitions. Prior to Canadian Student Living, Ms. Kalbfleisch managed PBSA in her role as Regional Director with CHC Student Housing. In this role, Ms. Kalbfleisch directly supervised property operations, including staff management, leasing, marketing and financial reporting. Ms. Kalbfleisch has a Master’s Degree in Business Administration (MBA) with a specialization in Strategic Management from Lazaridis School of Business and Economics. She is a registered Project Management Professional (PMP) in good standing with the Project Management Institute.
Patrick Miksa is a Partner at Campus Assets, the development arm of Alignvest Student Housing. Patrick is responsible for establishing the vision, policy and culture for all real estate activities at Campus Assets. A thought leader within the Higher Education sector, Patrick is a member of a number of Steering Committees, Finance Committees, Operations Committees, Development Committees and Student Programming Committees. He is currently the only Canadian developer to sit on the Urban Land Institute’s University Development & Innovation Council. In his previous role as Vice President for the premier purpose built student accommodation (PBSA) portfolio within the Canadian market, he led the creation and growth of their portfolio valued at over $1 billion, consisting of over 2.3 million sf with development costs in excess of $725 million.
Ms. Lockhart is a director of George Weston Limited, Choice Properties REIT and Atrium Mortgage Investment Corporation. Previously, Ms. Lockhart was the Chair of Gluskin Sheff + Associates, Inc., and a director of Loblaw Companies Limited, Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, Retirement Residence REIT and Barrick Gold Corporation. Additionally, Ms. Lockhart was formerly the Chief Administrative Officer of Frum Development Group and a Vice President of Shoppers Drug Mart Corporation. Currently, she is the Chair Emeritus of Crow’s Theatre Company and Director of The Royal Conservatory of Music, and was previously Chair of the Ontario Science Centre, President of the Canadian Club of Toronto, Chair of the Canadian Film Centre, Director of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Foundation and Director of The Canada Merit Scholarship Foundation. Ms. Lockhart was awarded the Order of Ontario in 2006.
Robert Wolf is a corporate director. Since 2008, through RTW Capital Corporation, Robert has been making active investments in and providing advisory services to North American businesses in a variety of sectors. Prior to 2008, Robert was the Chief Financial Officer of RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust from its inception in 1994. Prior to 1994, Robert held a variety of positions in both public accounting and private and public real estate companies.
Robert currently also serves on the Board of (i) Global Food and Ingredients Ltd. (TSXV: PEAS) as Chair and (ii) Dentalcorp Holdings Ltd. (TSX: DNTL) as Chair of the Audit Committee.
Robert is a Chartered Professional Accountant and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from McGill University and a Master of Business Administration degree from the Schulich School of Business at York University.
Rajiv Silgardo is a director of the OMERS Administration Corporation, where he serves as a member of the Board’s Investment and the Human Resources Committees. Mr. Silgardo has over 30 years’ experience in the investment industry as a senior executive in the areas of asset and wealth management. He retired in late 2019 as President and CEO of UBC Investment Management Trust, where he spearheaded the allocation and investment of the University’s Endowment and Pension portfolios across private and public asset classes. Prior to joining UBC in December 2016, Mr. Silgardo was Co-CEO of BMO Global Asset Management (“BMO GAM”), which he helped establish and grow from approximately $50 billion in assets under management in 2009 to over $300 billion by mid-2016. Earlier, Mr. Silgardo spent 14 years with Barclays Global Investors (“BGI”). Mr. Silgardo served initially as Chief Investment Officer and subsequently led the firm as President and CEO in Canada. In addition to OMERS, Mr. Silgardo serves as Chair of the Investment Advisory Committee of Greyhawk Investments. He is a past member of the Investment Committee of the Vancouver Foundation, the TSX Trading Advisory Committee and of the Board of Governors of the Bishop Strachan School in Toronto. He has also served on the Advisory Board at The Ted Rogers School of Business at Ryerson University and the Board of Directors of Canada Exchange Traded Funds Association. Mr. Silgardo received his B. Comm (Honours) and M. Com degrees from Delhi University, India, and an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a CFA Charterholder.
Reza Satchu is the Managing Partner and CoFounder of Alignvest Management Corporation. He has a Bachelor’s degree in economics from McGill University and a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard University, which he received in 1996.
Reza Satchu began his career at Merrill Lynch in 1991 as a Financial Analyst, where he was responsible for structuring and executing high yield debt offerings and executed 10 completed transactions aggregating over $3.5 billion in value. In 1996, he accepted a role and became a General Partner and Managing Director at Fenway Partners, a $1.4 billion private equity firm.
Over the course of his career, Reza Satchu has co-founded, built, and managed a number of businesses, including: Alignvest Management Corporation; KGS-Alpha Capital Markets, a U.S. fixed-income broker dealer with over $10 billion dollars in assets, that was sold to Bank of Montreal for over $400 million; StorageNow, which became Canada’s largest self-storage company prior to being sold to InStorage REIT for over $100 million; and SupplierMarket, a supply chain software company whose investors included Sequoia and KKR that was sold to Ariba for over $900 million.
Continuing his desire to help the next generation of entrepreneurs, Mr. Satchu launched Canada’s first Academic Center for Entrepreneurship studies and business incubation, Next Canada. Programs launched under Next Canada include Next 36, Next AI and Next Founders. Next Canada’s mission is to increase Canadian prosperity while accelerating the trajectory of Canada’s most promising entrepreneurs.
From 2003 to 2010, Mr. Satchu developed and taught Economics of Entrepreneurship at the University of Toronto as an Adjunct Professor. In 2020, he began serving as a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School where he teaches Launching Technology Ventures and The Entrepreneurial Manager.
Mr. Satchu served for 10 years as a director of the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children Foundation. He has been the recipient of Canada’s “Top 40 Under 40” Award, as well as the 2011 Management Achievement Award from McGill University.
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