Servant Leadership And Market Dominance With Chad Lavender (Podcast)

Chad Lavender is the President of Capital Markets for North America at Newmark. He has more than 15 years of commercial real estate experience, particularly in healthcare and senior housing. Over his career, Chad has completed more than $50 billion in transactions across the U.S., beginning his journey in markets like Alabama and Dallas.

Prior to joining Newmark, Chad worked in high-rise development before moving to lead the National Seniors Housing Group at HFF (Holliday Fenoglio Fowler), growing it into the number one senior housing platform in the country before HFF was acquired by Newmark.

The Dealmakers' Edge with A.Y. Strauss

Servant Leadership and Market Dominance with Chad Lavender

Insights from Chad Lavender on Servant Leadership in Capital Markets

Chad Lavender leads one of the largest capital markets teams at Newmark. Ask him who he reports to, and he'll point to the advisors on his platform. His job is supporting the people doing deals, helping them hit their goals, and clearing obstacles out of their way. That approach has kept his senior housing team at number one in the country for more than a decade.

The same thinking shapes how he works with clients. For two years straight, Chad and his partner Ryan Maconachy told prospects they should refinance their assets instead of selling them. Refinancing didn't generate a commission. Selling did. But refinancing was the right call for those clients at that moment, so that's what Chad recommended. They played for the long term, put client interests ahead of their own revenue, and ended up doubling their business every single year from 2012 to 2019.

In this episode of The Dealmakers' Edge, Aaron and Chad discuss what servant leadership actually looks like in a transaction business, why telling clients the truth builds more value than chasing every deal, how market dominance comes from discipline and consistency, and why attitude, effort, and energy are the only variables you can actually control.

2:08 – Growing up in Tuscaloosa with family in real estate and development

3:22 – Running a T-shirt business at Alabama and learning sales

4:02 – Starting in high-rise development in January 2008 as the financial crisis hit

5:16 – Cold-calling 62 groups and asking for introductions, not jobs

6:08 – Working triple duty as an analyst and broker at ARA

7:10 – Launching senior housing with Ryan Maconachy and advising clients to refinance

8:12 – Pitching HFF and doubling revenue every year from 2012 to 2019

9:03 – Maintaining number one market share through COVID

14:16 – Servant leadership and reporting to advisors

19:23 – Controlling attitude, effort, and energy

20:51 – Market outlook across asset classes and emerging opportunities

24:01 – Be forever curious and work relentlessly

Transcript

Aaron Strauss: You're listening to The Dealmakers' Edge with A.Y. Strauss, diving deep into stories behind commercial real estate leaders.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Dealmakers' Edge. Today, we're excited to be joined by Chad Lavender, who's the President of Capital Markets for North America at Newmark. Chad has more than 15 years of commercial real estate experience, particularly in healthcare and senior housing, a market which has recently made a lot of headlines for having its growth outperform other major real estate sectors for the first time in nearly two decades.

Over his career, Chad has completed more than $50 billion in transactions across the U.S., beginning his journey in markets like Alabama and Dallas. Prior to joining Newmark, Chad worked in high-rise development at ARA, and shortly thereafter he moved to lead the National Seniors Housing Group at HFF, which was Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, growing into the number one senior housing platform in the country before they were acquired by Newmark. We're going to hear his story, and it's going to be a great episode. I hope you all enjoy.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Dealmakers' Edge. It's the first episode we're recording in 2026\. We have a very esteemed guest with us here, Chad Lavender, who's going to share his very exciting journey with us. He's currently President of Capital Markets for North America at Newmark. He's done over $50 billion of transactions. He's really just still at the early stages of his career, if I can say that. He's done so much, and he really has his pulse on the industry. He's working at a fabulous firm, and we're excited to get to know him today and share his story with our listeners.

So, Chad, thank you very much for making the time. Really appreciate it.

Chad Lavender: Thanks for having me. This is going to be a lot of fun.

Aaron Strauss: Yeah. I think the bottom line is we're going to learn from you today. I think a great way to inform where you are today is to tell the story of how you got here. I know it was incremental. It wasn't an overnight trip, but maybe you could talk about your upbringing, where you grew up, where you went to school, and how you got started in the industry. Then we'll get the story going.

Chad Lavender: So I grew up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. My mom worked at the University of Alabama for 35 years. My dad sold recreational real estate—timberland and that type of thing. My aunt was also a mentor as well. She was actually the President and CFO of Turner.

My parents both came from tiny towns. My dad had one stoplight that's now gone. My mom maybe had three; that's now two, in Alabama. So we lived in the big city of Tuscaloosa. That's where I grew up. I went to high school, played football, baseball, and basketball from third grade to graduating high school. So I was always doing something.

Then I went to the University of Alabama. My parents told me I might want to go to maybe Vandy or UVA, or maybe test the waters there. My parents said, "Sounds great, but the check's going to Alabama." So I said, "Alabama sounds great." I started there, loved it. It was a great experience. I learned a lot.

They had a great real estate finance program. It's now a major, so it was a great education. I really felt like I was a step ahead because I knew the vernacular of real estate. I knew what a cap rate was and a lot of the easy things.

I was pretty focused on school, but more focused on campus politics. I was in a T-shirt business. We sold T-shirts at JNJ Apparel. We basically sold all the university fraternity and sorority T-shirts, which ended up being a great business. That was my first foray into sales, going in and trying to figure out how to get people to use us as their rep. That was a lot of fun and really learned that I wanted to be in the sales transaction business.

But my goal growing up in Tuscaloosa was to build high-rise office buildings all over the world, for whatever reason. I'd really only been to Atlanta, so I don't know why that was my goal, but it seemed like a cool thing to do.

So I moved to Dallas and worked for Harwood International. We were building the highest-rent building in Dallas, the highest-rent building in London, and the highest-rent building at the corner of Canon and Wilshire in Beverly Hills. So goal achieved out of the gate.

But what I didn't understand or didn't see coming, I started my career in January of '08, was the GFC coming fast and furiously at any development business or any real estate business. So I went from figuring out how to get a new development built to learning how to fight with lenders, wrestle credits to the ground to get buildings leased, renegotiate everything, and try to get office buildings finalized with a lender bankruptcy and a condo building, one of the worst times in history.

It was a fun experience. I did that for a couple of years. My goal was to get into the transaction business. The development window wasn't opening anytime soon. There wasn't even a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel in 2010\. Granted, Dallas was probably better off than most markets, but it still wasn't happening there.

So I went and met with 62 different groups, which was a lot of fun, like Bill Duvall, Harlan Crow, a lot of legends. They met with me, and I'd say ignorance is bliss. I just cold-called these people, and they were kind enough to take the time to meet with me. I always led with, "I know you're not hiring, but will you introduce me to two more people who would be beneficial for me to meet?"

Eventually, I kept meeting people, and finally ARA—a guy named Brian O'Boyle, who led that market—was hiring a multifamily analyst and junior broker role because that was the first thing coming out of the ditch in the GFC. Multifamily was coming out pretty fast and furious, and there was actual transaction velocity there. So he took a chance on me, which was awesome.

We were pretty successful out of the gate. My goal was to be a broker quickly. He said, "That's great, but I need eight hours a day out of a minimum out of you as an analyst." So I'd work from 5:00 to 8:00 a.m. as an analyst, 8:00 to 5:00 as a broker, and then from 5:00 p.m. to wherever as an analyst again.

I got a crash course in real estate. I was calling on Class C multifamily assets that weren't a lot of fun to tour, but I really learned how to call people, meet people, all those types of things, which was invaluable. I had a great mentor in Brian O'Boyle, Brian Murphy, and Brian O'Boyle Jr., so that was a lot of fun.

I realized I was going to be a low man on the totem pole for a while. The senior housing sector was outperforming any other asset class in the country at that point. So my partner today, Ryan Maconachy, had just started a senior housing platform at ARA. He said, "Let's go try to do this."

So we started trying to sell senior housing assets. The answer for most clients was not to sell; it was to refinance. We could see values getting better. We could see NOIs growing. We could see cap rates compressing in the future.

After two years of telling people to refinance—which is not a very good business plan when you're commission-based, at least to make money—our whole goal and motto has always been clients' interests ahead of our own. We wanted to be honest with them and really play the long game, telling them what was best for them and their asset and their investment to maximize value.

So we went and pitched HFF to start a healthcare business within HFF and do senior housing, medical office, debt, equity, and sales. That went really well. We fixed the debt piece there and really learned the equity business. Our goal was to double our business every year. We did that from 2012 to 2019\. We doubled our business every year both from a sales volume, debt volume, and revenue perspective. We had a ton of fun doing it.

Then COVID hit. We had to get creative on how to get deals done, did a lot of direct deals, and maintained our number one market share in the business for the past 10 to 12 years. We've built on that. We went through COVID and kind of muddled through it. Now we're on the other side of it, and we're back to record transaction volume.

I think we did over $5 billion in sales and $3 billion in debt this past year, and we should do more than that in the first half of this coming year.

Aaron Strauss: Incredible. That doubling philosophy never seems to stop with you, but I think that's fabulous as an overview. I want to just go back to a couple of key points that you just casually mentioned.

One is you took the darkest financial crisis of our collective lifetimes and you turned it into an opportunity. You could have just curled up into a ball and said the world is over, but you kept moving. I think that's what successful people do. They don't care what's happening. They can't control markets, but they can control their own energy and activity.

The idea of networking at all times, in good markets and bad, speaking to busy people without pressuring them for a job, saying, "Do you have time to meet?" That guy, Chad, was nice. I liked him. I'm going to help them, introduce them to two people, without needing anything other than a meeting. That's the way to set yourself up for collective success.

Then also, you casually mentioned that you were working as an analyst and a broker. I think most, most, most people would say, "I'm happy to have a job, need an analyst. I'll be an analyst for four or five years. Then I'll lift my head up and then I'll see what brokerage is about." But you said, "To hell with it." That doubling mentality, it comes from somewhere. We're going to try to talk about where it comes from.

Then also, you were seeing around the corner in a very prescient way beyond somebody who's pretty junior, graduated from college. I think people only, with years and years of retrospect, look back and say, "Oh, the multifamily was picking up." But you had this confidence from a very young age after graduation to say, "This is where it's going," and not being afraid to leap ahead.

I know you're smiling because you don't want to take all the credit, but just to put it back out there, it's not very simplistic.

Chad Lavender: It was more fear. You know, to start my illustrious real estate career, from profits from the t-shirt company, I bought a condo in Dallas. So my first investment was a terrible one. Although with time, any investment is good if you give it long enough.

So I had a mortgage to pay. I had a chip on my shoulder because I was from a small town, didn't go to some Ivy League school, and wanted to prove myself. My parents certainly didn't like that I was going to a full commission job from a very stable salary and bonus job because it's just different from what they came from. So it was definitely a risk.

But you got to look at everything risk-adjusted. The time to fail is when you're young because your downside is just not really that large. You have this confidence that you can do anything because you don't know how hard that is after seeing it. So we were so ignorantly blissful that we could go dominate and take over an industry quickly that we just put our heads down, did it, went around, traveled every week, met everyone, had a lot of fun doing it.

I tried to work harder than anyone else and give honest, clear advice that was to our clients' benefit, not ours.

Aaron Strauss: No, 100%. Just navigating through those markets, it seems like really every two years you can literally track your resume. It really factors to that doubling because you don't continue to get those promotions by sitting on your laurels and just coasting from last year's revenue.

I'm sure, like everybody else I know, in early January you have your pipeline, but you're like, "We got to do that all over again." You've got a big team. So maybe you could talk about how you've maintained that intensity as your career has ratcheted up.

You've got a big, broad team you're part of. It's a big company you're part of. So you're entrepreneurial on one end, but at the same time, you have to navigate a lot of nuances at a large organization. So maybe you could talk about your career journey broadly, all that discipline that brought you to where you are present day.

Chad Lavender: I think saying that I have discipline is probably too creditful. I think it's hard work to just really put your head down and push through any obstacle and not be scared to fail, like just going all in and having fun doing it.

Picking great partners and great people to work with makes it fun, even in the challenging times. So we had a lot of fun, even though it was hard. On the Newmark side, it's the most fun we've ever had. We're building a great business.

Our motto is, "If you're great, you should be here." We believe we've assembled the best talent in the business. We want to keep more white space for our brokers and advisors to go do more deals and not be overcrowded. So we're still small from a brokerage account perspective, but large from a transaction volume perspective.

Our goal is to have the highest revenue per advisor so you get better quality advisory to our clients, and they know if they're hiring Newmark anywhere, we've got the best person in any seat in the country.

Aaron Strauss: It's a lot of responsibility. How many people are reporting to you on a regular basis? How do you manage team infrastructure? It's probably really fun.

Chad Lavender: I really view it as me reporting to them. I think our whole leadership takes a servant leader mentality where we report to the advisors and try to help them achieve all their goals and maybe invent some, whether it's helping them on a pitch or introductions to bring in over talent that's complementary across the country to build our platform across the globe.

So I think we really view it as not who works for us, but how many people do we work for and how much we can help move the needle for them.

Aaron Strauss: I think that was articulated beautifully. I think that's the ultimate truth. If you're leading, you're working for other people. That's just the way it is. I report to several people as well from that topic. But it's all good. It's all good. It makes it fun and interesting. People make life interesting.

But maybe you could talk about day-to-day more of your role, right? Because you're sitting in a management seat. You've got clients and team members calling you all day. I'm sure you've got a ton of travel. If you can just mark your role as far as, "I spend this amount of my time and energy on this type of project versus this type of project," firm-wide initiatives, I'd love to give a flavor for our listeners of what it looks like from your seat day-to-day.

Chad Lavender: I'd say my day-to-day is never the same. I don't have an allocation of time per day. Sometimes there's a bunch of fires that we have to put out, things that are pressing, or either they're just revenue things that we need to go help people win on the pitch front.

A lot of days I'm spending a lot of time in the trenches on the senior housing brokerage team with my partners there. Then certainly I'm on the road most weeks recruiting, meeting with clients, trying to help them achieve their objectives, and all our advisors as well. Our respective offices help them achieve their goals and really provide them the tools to be successful.

Aaron Strauss: Have you had any leadership training, any mentorship guidance? I know you've talked to tons of people and you're in a big organization, but I think sometimes people are natural-born leaders. I think even natural-born leaders need augmentation, and they need people to go to and turn to.

Have you been able to build an inner roster of people you can talk to for your day-to-day conundrum?

Chad Lavender: I have several mentors that I lean on pretty heavily, certainly at career decisions and/or inflection points for how we should make a decision. I've had three or four mentors that I've talked to on a, I'd say sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly basis, and it's mutual.

They're older than me, so they're calling and asking what I do about this next-generation problem as well. So it's been a lot of fun. I try to learn from the mistakes that others have already made so I don't have to make them, just like we teach our kids.

"I'm telling you to do this because I've already made that mistake, not just because I'm telling you what to do." Sometimes I'll listen, like my kids, and sometimes I have to make the same mistake that someone's told me not to make, but I try not to.

Aaron Strauss: Yeah. It's pretty alarming if somebody older than you is asking you for advice, though, as far as leadership capacity, because you're looking at them thinking, "I thought you knew what was going on over here." But it's all good. It's healthy that way. You want to have different generational input from across so many voices.

Chad Lavender: Curious people, too. They always want to learn more. It may not just be me. They want to learn how Newmark is doing something and how we're approaching an issue or have approached something. So I'd say curious leaders and people are always learning, asking as many questions as they can to try to gain knowledge. They don't have to make a mistake or can make a better-informed decision that will have a forced multiplier effect on their business.

Aaron Strauss: A thousand percent. Maybe we talk a little bit about the mental headspace you have to be in to do what you do daily, to have gotten to where you've gotten, to have the success you've had over the years. I know you're always driving forward. You're never stopping. Yesterday's performance is almost irrelevant. It's just something you look back on casually, and you're always focused on the future. "What's next?" Grow, grow, grow.

But you've ridden some real markets here. You've navigated COVID. You've grown with a fabulous, successful organization. There's always ups and there's downs, and it's never linear. But I think a lot of people who listen to this podcast are maybe in the earlier stages of their career. So maybe someone's at year three or year five or year two, should they push through? How do they navigate cycles, the ups and downs?

What are your themes that you use internally to keep the motor running and all the pieces moving together? I'm sure you have days that are better than others, but just collectively, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Chad Lavender: Well, I have a great wife that I think keeps me leveled off most of the time. But it's control what you control. You can control your attitude, your effort, your energy. Those are three things that you can control. Those will ultimately lead to success no matter what the market is.

Always having your clients' interest ahead of your own, trying to think for them and give them ideas of what would be beneficial to their business. Because a lot of times we're seeing around the corners they do, just of emerging capital, emerging investment opportunities, just lots of ways that we could monetize assets in their business at a favorable mark that they may not see yet. Because we have the market intelligence daily.

When comps come out and have closed, they're irrelevant in a market that's moving this fast. So it's trying to share our knowledge from an advisory perspective with as many of our clients as we can so they can make the best at-the-market decisions with all our knowledge for their business.

Aaron Strauss: Where do you think we are today market-wise? I think you have a very unique perspective because of where you sit. It's a huge firm, et cetera. I know talking to a lot of people in the industry, the second half of '25 was almost dramatically different than the first half in many ways.

It seems like there's a lot of momentum going into '26, but what's exciting for you where you see things, and what's exciting for the clients? And what are you sharing with them when you're bringing market intelligence?

Chad Lavender: It's a little different depending on what the client's focus is and what their objectives are. But I'd say the data center business, we continue to say, is a modern-day gold rush in commercial real estate. We're the number one data center advisor, so that's been a lot of fun, with almost 70% market share. That's been fun to be at the tip of the spear on those capitalizations across the country and globe.

The senior housing sector is as hot as we've ever seen it. You have negative supply growth, 6% plus rent growth, favorable demographics, and an entry point that's harder than most asset classes because your operators matter so much. It's almost operator, operator, location.

The student housing business has a ton of momentum. We expect to see the multifamily business rebound the second half of the year; we're starting to see green shoots now. As supply wanes, we're seeing rent growth start to pop back up. We're seeing it in the Bay Area. We're seeing it in the Midwest, places that had lower supply growth, and we expect that to play out in the Sunbelt.

We're starting to see a lot of office, people are office-curious, and I'd say they're office-serious. They're trying to go buy office. Institutional bidder pools have doubled. We're seeing blue-chip groups see office bottom this summer and really starting to buy into this upswing as we see leasing velocity improve across the country.

Industrial, we're seeing a crazy appetite from a buyer perspective. In some markets, there's still a bid-ask gap between where people want to buy and sell. Storage, we're seeing increased interest. Manufactured housing, tons of interest. Retail is off the charts from a performance perspective and institutional capital interest.

So really, it's a lot of different asset classes, a lot going on, and every deal is a snowflake. They're different when you drop that asset in a different location across the country and the quality of that asset across the country. A ton of interest on the affordable housing side too. So all across the board.

Aaron Strauss: It's exciting to see from '23 to '26 what happened. I think people were saying, "Survive till '25." Maybe they meant '26\. At any given day, we get new healthy transactions, and you're trying to solve for some historical issues, but it seems like the momentum's here.

You're perfectly equipped to ride the next wave with your background, your firm behind you, and all the energy you bring. Anything else I could have asked you, but I didn't? I'm sure people are trying to get in my calendar for coffee. "Chad, let's meet. I want to get advice from you." If you're sitting with that proverbial advice session for 30 minutes in between all your meetings, what are the things you're telling some of the younger recruits on your team or people that are pitching to you to get on your calendar?

Chad Lavender: Be forever curious. Read as much as you can. Have a great attitude, great energy. Work with relentless effort, and you're going to be successful.

I think it's trying to figure out where your talents match opportunity. Is the advisory business the right business, or the principal side, the developer side? I think everyone's different, and everyone has really differentiated talent.

But I think it's trying to find the place to maximize your own talent. But you can't replace hard work, effort, and energy. That's something that's undefeated in business. You have to work harder than anyone if you want to get ahead.

Aaron Strauss: Well said, Chad. I think we'll wrap here. I really appreciate the time. It's going to be exciting to watch '26 from your perspective and see what's happening. I know you've already got a big pipeline, a fabulous team, and a firm behind you.

I'm glad our listeners got to hear about your journey and story, and they'll be following you further. We'll wrap it here, my friend, but wishing you the best success in '26 and beyond.

Chad Lavender: Absolutely. Likewise, it's going to be a fun year. We're fired up.

Aaron Strauss: Awesome. To be continued, my friend.

Chad Lavender: All right. Thanks.

Aaron Strauss: Thank you for joining The Dealmakers' Edge. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Please, give us a five-star rating so more people can follow the conversation.

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