Gilbert Sandler, Managing Director, founded RealVest in 1988 to provide structured and securitized financing techniques and capital markets access for real estate and other projects. Mr. Sandler had previously served as a Director of the Bear, Stearns & Co., Inc. Real Estate Group responsible for structured financing transactions, and had headed the Project Finance Group at Ehrlich Bober & Co., Inc., a New York-based national bond firm. He has developed several innovative taxable and tax-exempt financing structures for real estate and other non-traditional capital markets borrowers and has been responsible for structuring and executing well over $1 billion dollars in project financing transactions.
Mr. Sandler's financial expertise is the product of many years of private law practice specializing in public and private financing with Willkie Farr & Gallagher, a major national law firm, and as General and Corporate Counsel for various Burns and Roe, Inc. companies (a multi-national engineering and construction group). He had also served as a Law Secretary to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (Hon. S.R. Waterman, C.J.), and as an Officer of several ABA Committees, including the Committees on Federal Securities Regulations and the Section on Public Contract Law.
Mr. Sandler is an honors graduate of Columbia Law School and Rutgers College and has been a frequent lecturer and contributor to periodicals on financial, legal and real estate topics. He also holds FINRA licenses as General Securities Principal, Municipal Securities Principal and Financial Operations Principal for Realvest's affiliated broker-dealer, Abridge-Realvest Securities Corporation.
Gregory Nelson, Vice-President & Principal, joined RealVest in 1996 after eight years of diverse experience in public finance with major Wall Street investment banking firms.
At Paine Webber/UBS, he worked in the New York State/Infrastructure Group specializing in infrastructure financings for such major agencies as the New York State Dormitory Authority, the New York State Thruway Authority and the New York Local Government Assistance Corporation.
Previously, Mr. Nelson had spent three years in Prudential Securities’ State Revolving Fund (SRF) Group where he was responsible for securitized leveraged wastewater treatment bond issues under the Clean Water Act. Before moving into the SRF Group, he had been a senior quantitative specialist Prudential’s Capital Transactions Group structuring financings for all areas of public finance, and designed in-house bond analytic systems.
Mr. Nelson has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Bryant University, Rhode Island, and holds FINRA licenses for Series 7, 27, 50 and 63.
Sunil Aggarwal, Director, joined REALVEST in 2010 and focuses on project finance transactions. Sunil is the founding principal of ThinkForward Financial (“TFF”), an advisory firm based in New York City. Before forming TFF, Sunil Aggarwal served as a senior investment banker with Roosevelt & Cross, a prominent NY-based bond firm, and with the NYC Industrial Development Agency. His broad experience includes dozens of project financings for non-profit organizations, industrial companies and real estate developers.
Mr. Aggarwal received his M.S. in Quantitative Finance from Carnegie Melon and an M.B.A. in Finance from Manchester Business School, England. He holds FINRA Series 7, 50 and 63 licenses.
Tom Ferrara, Higher Education Consultant, Tom Ferrara is an expert in the for-profit education industry and specializes in conceptualizing, designing, developing and implementing strategies that deliver strong, sustainable increase in profits, ROI, and increased market shares.
His knowledge and expertise in the higher education realm and other areas has provided him with the opportunity to be the featured guest/author/speaker in various media outlets including ABC, NBC, CNN, USAToday, The Wall Street Journal, LA Times, and Chicago Tribune. He also contributes numerous articles for many other newspapers and magazines around the country. Additionally, he recently authored an educational career textbook and course for Thomson Learning entitled Job Seeker Secrets. Tom currently consults with over forty analysts, schools and investment banks regarding the for-profit education industry, areas of growth, innovation and best practices.
Tom received four National Marketing and Admissions awards for his performance as Vice President of Marketing and Admissions for Gibbs College. He also built an Internet company and application service provider in the career portal marketplace from inception to its position as a publicly held company, growing the business from a three-person start-up to a thriving organization, employing over eighty five people with a large Financial Services & Higher Education practice.
He is currently on the Advisory board of several successful companies serving the job search, career and human capital industry.
Tom is a graduate of Bucknell University.