Shekar Narasimhan Ep. 68 - Shekar is a bona fide mover and shaker of finance and community development! How do you fix a town dying because their major industry pulled out? How do you retain the young adults because there aren't jobs available in the town? Shekar proves that one of the solutions is to revitalize the downtown. Listen to his success stories in renewing small towns in America. Shekar's passion is to address generational poverty, racial bias, and gender inequities. He walks the talk.
Top Takeaways:
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- How communities decline due to leaving of young people in search of better opportunities
- Factors that contribute to community revitalization through public-private partnerships
- Helping underprivileged Americans have the ability to access the already existing opportunities
- Understanding the value of housing for both better lives and as an investing opportunity
- How we can find the solutions to deal with racial biases and gender inequalities in the American society
Listen in to learn the importance of helping underprivileged communities have the same access to opportunities as others through community development.
"One of the roots of segregation in the United States and racial injustice is housing." -Shekar Narasimhan
CAREER
Shekar Narasimhan, the Managing Partner at Beekman Advisors, providing strategic advisory services to companies and investors involved in real estate, mortgage finance, affordable housing, and related sectors. Shekar is a Co-Founder for the Remergent Communities Fund, an Opportunity Zone Fund, focusing on small towns and cities in the Southeast U.S. He also serves as Chairman of Papillon Capital, focused on sustainable infrastructure investing.
Prior to Beekman Advisors, Shekar Narasimhan was a Managing Director of Prudential Mortgage Capital Company, one of the nation's leading providers of commercial mortgage financing. Immediately prior to Shekar's time at Prudential, he was Chairman & CEO of the WMF Group, a publicly traded, commercial mortgage financial services company. WMF was one of the largest such firms in the country before being acquired by Prudential in 2000.
BOARDS
Shekar is currently serving on the boards of Broadstone Net Lease, Inc., Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. and the Democracy Alliance. He is on the Economic Advisory Council for the Center for American Progress and is a member of the Urban Institute's Policy Leadership Council. He has served on many boards, including the Low Income Investment Fund, the Community Preservation and Development Corporation, the National Housing Conference and the National Multi Housing Council. He is a sought-after speaker on housing finance and affordable housing and is considered a leading expert on rental housing issues in the United States.
COMMUNITY SERVICE
Shekar was appointed by Governors McAuliffe and Northam of Virginia as a Commissioner for the Virginia Housing Development Authority and is currently serving as its Chairman. Previously, he also served as a Member of the Board for Housing and Community Development in Virginia, and as a Commissioner on President Obama's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. He was on the founding board of Indiaspora, a nonprofit organization founded by community leaders to unite Indian Americans and to transform their success into meaningful impact in India and on the global stage. He was also Co-Founder of Upakar Foundation, a higher education scholarship fund.
Shekar has served several terms on the Mortgage Bankers Association of America (MBA) Board of Directors, was the first Chair of the MBA's Commercial/Multifamily Board of Governors (COMBOG) and founded its Multifamily Steering Committee. He was elected as the first Chair of the Fannie Mae DUS Advisory Committee.
AWARDS
Shekar has received numerous awards and recognition in the real estate industry including the MBA's highest honor in 1999 and the Fannie Mae Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. In 2010, he was the recipient of the Dean H.J. Zoffer Distinguished Service Medal from the University of Pittsburgh. Shekar holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India and an MBA from the Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has earned the designation of Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB).
Key Moments
Learn the value of funding companies that are focused on offering human needs services for small communities.
Shekar describes where his passion for providing housing stems from due to having a platform he can be listened to and help others [2:40]
He explains how the Remergent Funds project is a way to raise communities that have been left behind [4:21]
The sort of improvements that the Remergent Funds is projected to bring to targeted communities, which goes beyond just improved housing [11:39]
The support that Shekar and his community development project are receiving and the impact it's having on communities and America in general [16:28]
Shekar describes what Papillon Capital does which is to offer capital to companies that offer human needs services [19:39]
He talks about the Indiaspora organization and the many of their philanthropy activities aimed at impacting people in India from America [25:55]
He talks about his role as a commissioner on President Obama's Advisory Commission, which was to help marginalized communities have access to the government [31:21]
Why he believes that using his voice to communicate the fundamentality of safe and secure housing for all people is his legacy [35:01]
How COVID taught us the importance of family love and helped us reflect on the impacts of racial discrimination in American society [41:59]