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1. The Right Professional, with the Right Background may be a Rare Find:

 

THE SITUATION

The President of a leading Private Equity and Affordable Housing Investor, Developer, and Owner-Operator retained KM Partners to recruit and retain an accomplished Asset & Property Management leader. This vertically integrated company acquires, develops, and operates Affordable Housing communities and related assets in more than 25 states. The Company President was looking for an Executive Search Firm with a deep understanding of Affordable Housing to assist in developing the newly created role with the goal of helping to bridge the communication and execution gap between corporate and the property management teams. This organization is growing substantially through a robust pipeline of opportunistic, value-add portfolio and asset acquisitions as well as development in strategic core markets with multiple existing and new joint ventures as well as affiliate companies. Our client was seeking a proven track record for translating key objectives into actionable plans to drive asset performance by increasing operational efficiencies and reducing costs to impact the bottom line, while executing in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.

 

THE CHALLENGE

Find a leader to liaise across Acquisitions, Development, Asset and Property Management teams to oversee the purchase, redevelopment, and stabilization of affordable and market-rate multifamily Real Estate. The right combination of full-cycle development deal experience, strategic leadership and tactical operational expertise to drive property management performance, including an emphasis on personality and culture fit to work on a close-knit, collaborative and high performing team reporting directly to the President. This is a rare set of skills and even more precise culture fit and would require a deep network in Affordable Housing along with the capacity to thoroughly understand the skill set of the professional(s) in consideration.

 

KM DELIVERED

Finding this highly desirable, industry-specific expertise would take a deep network to uncover the rare set of skills necessary to succeed in this uncommon role, and, as the President described the profile, the KM team realized they already had interviewed this person in a previous search. We relocated a 20-year industry professional across the country with both market-rate and Affordable Housing experience, including LIHTC, project-based rental assistance, bonds, layered subsidies, public housing, mixed-use, Section 42, Section 8, PBRA, HOME, and PHA. The professional we placed is a high-caliber professional who has been consistently promoted throughout their career into roles of increasing responsibility with recognition for their ability to successfully execute a range of tactical and strategic enterprise wide initiatives.

 

In this scenario, our deep networks within Affordable Housing across the US and in-depth, intimate knowledge of the skills and abilities of the professionals we represent led to this unique placement into a newly created opportunity, customized for the client’s need and the unique skills of the professional we recruited.

2. Knowledge, Experience and Creativity can make the Offer Work:

 

THE SITUATION

A National Affordable Housing Company with a strong reputation for operational excellence and a values-oriented culture engaged our services to find, attract, and retain multiple experienced industry professionals to add to their growing team within development, asset and property management. One of our placements, was a Senior Asset Manager and 20-year veteran of the Affordable Housing industry with directly relevant experience in LIHTC, Section 8, 202, PBV’s, and several supporting industry certifications. This professional had solely organized the Asset Management department at a startup Affordable Housing Developer, creating processes and procedures for the department, implementing systems and industry best practices, and providing much needed organization to increase efficiency. This knowledge and prior experience would be a perfect match for our client, who was in the process of growing out their Asset Management Department. After a multi-step interview process, and strong professional references were verified, our candidate was endorsed by senior leadership as a strong culture fit with closely aligned core values and extended an offer.

 

THE CHALLENGE

The opportunity with this large company offered a robust benefits package with reasonable uniformity given the size of organization, and the high potential for advancement opportunity due to the organization’s national platform, succession planning and continued growth. The new offer came with one week less in total PTO; however, it is important to our candidate to continue to donate their time to volunteering one week per year as part of their time off. They commented; “I have such a passion for the work, the people we serve and the mission in Affordable Housing.” Our candidate said they would accept an offer if our client could offer 1 more week of PTO. However, this is a large company with hundreds of employees and precise guidelines for hiring tiers, benefits, and internal equity, and therefore cannot make an exception. 

 

KM DELIVERED

Our thorough approach and history of repeat business with this client led to our intimate familiarity with the benefits of this organization. All employees are offered one volunteer day per year off and a policy for this level of middle management allows for the ability to take unpaid time off, if necessary. We advised our prudent, budget conscious client to increase the offer by only 1.7% to account for the other 4 days to equal one additional week of total annual compensation to close the gap in the difference in PTO and to allow the candidate to take the additional PTO days unpaid. Essentially, the candidate was paid through this salary increase for the unpaid time off. The professional we represented happily accepted and really appreciated the creativity in how we closed the gap and is now thriving in the position.

 

In this scenario, thorough knowledge of everything the organization has to offer, including internal benefits, team dynamics, and management policies as well as our attention to detail, market intel, and personal touch led to our ability to create a win-win situation.

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