Ryan Williams (entrepreneur)
Ryan A. Williams | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1988 (age 36)[1][2] |
| Alma mater | Harvard |
| Occupation | CEO of Cadre |
Ryan Williams is a technology entrepreneur best known as the CEO and co-founder of Cadre, a New York-based technology company which he co-founded in 2014 with Jared and Josh Kushner.
Early life
Williams was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Career
Williams began his career in real estate technology during his undergraduate term at Harvard. He was inspired to create a system to track foreclosed homes after seeing the impact of foreclosures during a trip to Atlanta.[2] By using data about properties and neighborhoods, he was able to start a business purchasing deeply undervalued homes and restoring them to occupancy.[2] This business "flipping" homes with classmates and others as investors was his first entrepreneurial venture.[3] It received backing from Charles Kushner.[4] In 2020, he highlighted the importance of Citizens Trust Bank, an Atlanta bank founded by five Black businessmen and currently a Black-owned bank, to his early success. As a young Black man he was denied loans by 10 other banks before the then-chairman of Citizens Trust personally called to say that he believed in Willlams.[5]
After graduation from Harvard, he worked at Goldman Sachs and Blackstone before founding Cadre in 2014.[2] He worked at Blackstone in their real estate private equity division.[6]
At 26 years old, he left Blackstone to found Cadre, a financial technology platform that seeks to make the real estate market more like a stock market.[7] Williams currently serves as CEO of Cadre[8] and has led it through a $65 million Series C fundraising round led by Andreessen Horowitz.[9] He has been quoted as saying “Cadre’s mission is to create a more efficient economy, where we can connect the world’s buyers and sellers in opaque assets that have been inaccessible to many.”[10] He believes that increasing the ability of investors to participate in alternative asset classes (such as "energy, natural resources, oil, infrastructure or anything that’s historically been privately held or inaccessible"[11]) will expand the opportunity to build multi-generational wealth to many more members of the world[12] by "giving people direct, deal-by-deal access to commercial real estate, like you would buy and sell something on Amazon."[13] To him, that mission includes a secondary market and the ability of investors to select the deals they are most interested in, at lower cost.[14]
Personal life
Williams is a fan of LSU football.[7][15] He lives in Greenwich Village.[7]
References
- ^ "Ryan Williams". Fortune.
- ^ a b c d Geiger, Daniel (March 26, 2017). "40 Under 40 2017: Ryan Williams, 29". Crain's New York Business.
- ^ Morris, Meghan. "Cadre: It's who and what you know" (PDF). PERE News. PEI. Retrieved September 13, 2017.
- ^ Vardi, Nathan. "Ryan Williams, 30, Started A Revolutionary $800M Fintech. But Can He Escape His Kushner-Trump Connection?". Forbes. Retrieved February 27, 2021.
- ^ Williams, Ryan (October 14, 2020). "Opinion: Investing in Black-owned banks key to ending racial disparities". CNBC. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
- ^ "Ryan A. Williams Honored by Goldman Sachs for Entrepreneurship". www.prnewswire.com.
- ^ a b c "Ryan Williams - Cadre Real Estate". The Real Deal New York.
- ^ "Cadre CEO Ryan Williams: Hire people you have no business hiring". www.bizjournals.com.
- ^ Majewski, Taylor. "Three-year-old Cadre raises $65 million from Andreessen Horowitz". Built In NYC. Built In NYC. Retrieved September 13, 2017.
- ^ "Google and Facebook employees are flocking to a startup that's raised ~$70 million to shake up the real estate world". Business Insider.
- ^ "How this 50-person startup is planning to completely transform the real estate industry". Built In NYC.
- ^ Sharf, Samantha. "How A 28-Year-Old Plans To Upend The $81 Trillion Global Real Estate Investment Market". Forbes.
- ^ "Cadre". Inc.com.
- ^ "A Conversation with Cadre's Ryan Williams". TheFR.com.
- ^ Locker, Melissa (January 16, 2019). "Lil Wayne helps Cadre CEO and cofounder Ryan Williams get ready for big presentations". Fast Company. Retrieved May 23, 2019.