Lili Dunn
Chief Investment Officer, Bell Partners
Lili Dunn shocked the industry when she announced on stage at the MFE Conference in 2010 that she was leaving AvalonBay after 20 years for Bell Partners. Nearly five years later, Dunn has expansively stretched her wings in the entrepreneurial environment of the large private firm.
As Bell’s CIO, Dunn has committed herself to growing the firm’s investment platform, which typically delivers about $1 billion in transactions annually. Her recent accomplishments include the $1.8 billion sale of 64 properties with Bell joint-venture partner DRA Advisors, in only 60 days. Also under Dunn’s leadership, Preqin, a data research firm for alternative assets, has ranked Bell Partners as having one of the most consistent top-performing funds in the world for the past two years.
“There are certainly opportunities for women to advance in our industry, but, as with most things, it usually doesn’t come easily,” says Dunn, who has worked for it from the start. She earned her real estate license at 18 and sold houses through college. She also started her own market-research firm and sold it at a profit at graduation.
Dunn also played an integral role early on at AvalonBay, assisting in an IPO that grew the firm’s assets from $300 million to $12 billion and helping coordinate the merger of its predecessors, Avalon Properties and Bay Apartment Communities, in 1998.
Having experienced two major downturns, Dunn knows the business cycle changes quickly and one has to be ready for anything.
“Fiscal and geo-politcal events can dramatically affect our economy and industry very quickly,” she says. “I take time to appreciate the good moments, because, in a blink, things can change.”
