Team
OUR TEAM
Board of Directors
Robert Morgenstern
Robert is the Founder and CO of the entire Canvas family of companies. He oversees all investment and strategic operational decisions at Canvas Investment Partners and Canvas Property Group. Rob has spent 25 years in real estate as a serial entrepreneur, Acquiring, Operating and Managing several thousand units and nearly $1billion of NYC Multifamily Real Estate with institutional LP investors. Canvas has a vertically integrated platform to invest up and down the capital stack including both debt and equity, while utilizing our in-house team to execute any capital plan and operate NYC multifamily through the Canvas divisions of property, asset and construction management and a leasing division for its owned assets and third party clients.
Robert has developed his core multifamily investment platform while finding opportunities in adjacent businesses. To that end, Rob is also the founder & CEO of Juliet Technologies. A BI and leasing intelligence platform with real-time analytics utilizing visualization tools to understand revenue trends, trade-outs, and other performance metrics aimed at elevating the leasing process.
Al Tylis
Al is a former real estate executive, having most recently served as Chief Executive Officer and President of NorthStar Asset Management Group (NYSE: NSAM), a $38 billion global real estate and asset management firm. Al has also served as a Board member at other prominent real estate companies, including NorthStar Realty Finance (NYSE: NRF), a $20 billion diversified REIT, NorthStar Realty Europe (NYSE: NRE), a $2 billion European office REIT, The Townsend Group, a leading provider of global investment management and advisory services with over $100 billion of advised assets, and RXR Realty. Currently, Al is an owner and Board member of several globally recognized professional sports and e-sports teams, and co-founded the Tylis Family Foundation, which seeks to make a positive impact in the lives of children and their families.
Cole Charnas
Cole Charnas is a Partner at 26North and oversees strategic platforms and special situations. Most recently, Cole was a Vice President at Security Benefit Life Insurance Company, leading the investment management team and reporting into the Chief Investment Officer. Previously, Cole was a Director at Eldridge since its inception in January 2016, where he evaluated private equity and credit investments across sports, financial services, and consumer businesses. Prior to joining Eldridge / Security Benefit, he worked as an analyst in investment banking at Credit Suisse in the Financial Institutions Group.
Brett Klein
Brett is the COO of the Canvas family of companies. His focus is to develop, implement and execute a corporate strategy to scale the Canvas platform and is key in 1) identifying, financing and formulating new company investments and markets; 2) overseeing all aspects of corporate and financial reporting; and 2) guiding and institutionalizing processes and procedures to maximize efficiency and profitability.
Klein, a veteran of the real estate and investment industries, possesses over 22 years of relevant experience developing, scaling, overseeing and serving in both COO and CFO roles for companies with combined real estate assets under management of approximately $16.0 billion.
Brett served as CFO at EQUITYMULTIPLE, a commercial real estate and financial technology investment platform, where he was key to corporate oversight and development, financial planning and reporting, structuring real estate transactions, and strategic growth.
Prior to his work for EQUITYMULTIPLE, Klein spent over 13 years with leading global real estate and investment management firm NorthStar Asset Management Group. As a senior leadership team member, he was instrumental in the organization’s immense growth from its 2004 IPO through its global expansion growing to over $8.0 billion in market capitalization and $38.0 billion in assets under management prior to its public merger in 2017.
During Brett’s tenure at the NorthStar companies, he served as Head of Alternative Products raising over $4.5 billion in equity capital where his responsibilities included oversight of product development and strategy; marketing and events; operations and due diligence; board reporting and presentation; financial and legal filings; and compliance for its retail business. In addition, Klein also served as a member of the Investment Committee for seven public non-traded companies, serving as COO for several, where he focused on a multitude of real estate credit disciplines with combined assets under management of $15.0 billion. Prior to that, he served as Head of Structured Products overseeing the company’s real estate debt-related secured and unsecured financing and securitization businesses completing over $14.0 billion in real estate transactions.
Brett Klein received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Finance and Investment Banking as well as Risk Management and Insurance.
Kristen Kenney
Kristen is the Director of Acquisitions for Canvas Investment
Partners, focused on sourcing, underwriting and executing multifamily
and mixed-use transactions in the greater New York area and select
national markets including Miami.
Prior to joining Canvas in 2018,
Kristen managed acquisitions for Rockfarmer Properties in New York
City. She holds a M.S. in Real Estate from New York University and a
B.A. in History from Yale.
Advisors
Debra Hess
Debra has diverse experience in leadership roles with public and private companies engaged in real estate, asset management and financial services. Most recently, she served chief financial officer for NorthStar Asset Management Group Inc. (NYSE: NSAM) and Chief Financial Officer of NorthStar Realty Finance Corp. (NYSE: NRF). Currently, Debra serves on corporate and not-for-profit boards. She serves on the board of directors of AG Mortgage Investment Trust (NYSE: MITT) and is currently non-executive chair of the board and chair of the nominating and corporate governance committee. She serves on the board of directors of Radian Group Inc. (NYSE: RDN) where she currently serves as chair of the Audit Committee. She serves on the board of Centerpoint Properties Trust and serves as chair of the Audit Committee. In addition, Debra serves on the Greenwich United Way which is a not-for-profit organization focused on community solutions in the areas of education, financial stability and health. She is Vice Chair of the Finance Committee and on the Executive Committee.
Daniel Gilbert
Dan is a private investor focused on investments across a variety of industries that offer strong total returns with management teams that have a demonstrated track record of success. Prior to Mr. Gilbert’s focus on private investing, he spent over 13 years as a member of the management team that founded and successfully expanded the various businesses of NorthStar Realty Finance Corp. (NYSE: NRF) and NorthStar Asset Management Group (NYSE: NSAM) until the January 2017 effective sale of those companies. Mr. Gilbert has served as Chairman and CEO of multiple public real estate companies and funds and has a strong track record of creating value for investors. Mr. Gilbert also served in various real esate-related position at Merrill Lynch in their principal investment groups.
Currently, Mr. Gilbert serves as the Chairman of the Gilbert Family Charitable Foundation, a charitable trust Mr. Gilbert and his wife Elise established to support charitable organizations focused on education, arts, physical activity and health. In addition, he is on the boards of a number of globally recognized sports and e-sports teams including Club Necaxa, in Liga MX, and G2 e-sports, one of the top e-sports organization in the world.
Senior Team
Team