NEW YORK—Savills Studley has strengthened its commercial real estate structured financing capability with the addition of Cara Leonard, an experienced hotel investment banking recruit, who will join the group’s Hotel Investment Banking platform as senior managing director in Los Angeles. She will be part of Savills Global Hotel Group led by George Nicholas.
Prior to joining Savills Studley, Leonard was the strategic head of the structured finance platform at Lowe Enterprise Investors (LEI), where she was responsible for sourcing, underwriting, structuring and negotiating debt and preferred equity investments in hotels. In that role, she also led portfolio and asset management and played a key role in capital formation and investment strategy.
While at LEI, she also served as the portfolio manager for the firm’s hospitality fund and led investor marketing for the firms comingled funds and separate accounts.