Clear Height Properties adds to growing team

Clear Height Properties has named Nena Guillory Hamilton as controller. In this position the accounting and commercial real estate veteran is responsible for financial and accounting functions for the company and its expanding commercial real estate portfolio. The firm also announced the appointment of Joe Young as vice president, asset management and acquisitions.

Hamilton has more than 20 years of experience in commercial real estate, specializing in property accounting and property management. Throughout her career in positions for well-known national and regional commercial real estate firms she has worked with virtually every type of property including industrial, office, medical office, retail, mixed-use, residential and conference center assets for clients that have included UBS, University of Chicago, Principal Life Insurance, JP Morgan, Inland Real Estate and HCA Healthcare, among others.

Prior to joining Clear Height, Hamilton was the assistant controller for CBRE’s Chicagoland portfolio. In that role she helped design and implement accounting software conversions while also revising and implementing internal controls processes. Hamilton also spearheaded the transition of primary operational components to the national hub in Minneapolis and was instrumental in streamlining processes, particularly AR and AP processing, from manual and time-consuming processes to automated processes. She managed a staff of as many as 10 full- and part-time employees.

Previously she was with Cassidy Turley (formerly Colliers Turley Martin Tucker). While there she worked exclusively on the HCA portfolio. Hamilton is a Certified Public Accountant and a Member of AICPA and the Illinois CPA Society. She earned a degree in business administration from Chicago State University.

“We continue to see great and diverse opportunity in the real estate markets in the Chicago area,” said Joe Sergi, COO and partner, Clear Height Properties. “To ensure we are in a position to take advantage of those opportunities, we continue to add talented staff to further build our portfolio of properties and services.”

In his role as vice president, asset management and acquisitions at Clear Height, Young is responsible for managing the underwriting, financing and closing of acquisitions, dispositions, joint venture agreements, investor reporting and other portfolio/asset management activities for Clear Height Properties. He will report to Gary Rose, managing director, asset management and acquisitions.

Young brings 16 years of experience to Clear Height, with 13 years in the commercial real estate industry. Most recently, Young provided asset management services at Situs for one of its dedicated client platforms focused on a portfolio that included office, industrial, retail, multifamily, hospitality and development properties. Previously, he managed a portfolio of highly structured loans for Bank OZK (formerly known as Bank of the Ozarks).

He started his career in real estate serving in various portfolio management, asset management, acquisitions, originations and accounting capacities at Pearlmark Real Estate Partners. Young began his career as a CPA at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He eared graduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Michigan, including a masters in accounting from the University’s Ross School of Business.