Paul E Adornato

Paul E. Adornato, CFA, is a veteran REIT analyst with more than 30 years’ experience on Wall Street, most recently at BMO Capital Markets (2005 – 2017) where co-founded the US REIT research franchise including creating its annual Real Estate Conference attracting 450 top institutional investors and REIT senior management. In 2010 Paul ranked second out of 65 analysts in the Real Estate category of The Wall Street Journal’s “Best on the Street” analyst survey. He serves as a speaker at industry conferences and is often quoted by major media outlets.

Paul began his real estate research career at Merrill Lynch (1993 – 1996) where he participated in the creation of the modern REIT era, and later at PaineWebber (1996 -1998) where he was part the top-ranked Institutional Investor research team. From 2001 to 2005, he grew two entrepreneurial REIT research efforts from scratch.

Since retiring from Wall St in 2017, he has reconnected with his alma mater, the MIT Center for Real Estate, where he helped develop and launch its first online Certificate course as Head Learning Facilitator for digital education specialist GetSmarter (a division of EdTech leader 2U (TWOU)), and where he mentors current Masters students and coaches MIT’s DesignX Accelerator Lab. In New York he serves as Adjunct Instructor in the Masters programs at NYU’s Schack Institute of Real Estate and at Fordham University’s Real Estate Institute. Paul serves as an advisor to a PropTech startup and to Future of Cities, a regenerative placemaking development firm.

Paul holds an MS in Real Estate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a BA in Statistics and Economics from Dartmouth College. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst and passed FINRA Series 7, 63, 86 and 87 exams. He recently returned to the classroom as a student in MIT’s Data Science for Real Estate Certificate Program, offered thru its Real Estate Innovation Lab.

Paul is a lifelong resident of Brooklyn, NY where he lives in an 1885 Brownstone he restored. He has a passion for architectural history and the built environment. In 2014 he trekked to the summit of Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,341), Africa’s highest peak.