Pamela West,
Nuveen
Beginning her career as a language arts teacher, Pamela West thought it would be fun to take on a marketing job during the summer with CBRE, writing and producing offering memorandums for its institutional multifamily sales team. The experience uncovered West’s hidden passion for real estate, and she never looked back. After earning her master’s, she joined Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA).
West says, “My career at TIAA has married my passion as a real estate professional while providing financial solutions for our participants, who are ultimately teachers and professors.” Today, she leads the real estate impact investment strategy at Nuveen, where its existing impact housing portfolio, acquired principally through TIAA’s General Account, stands at 121 properties across 41 metropolitan statistical areas with a gross value of over $3.1 billion, as of December.
Approaching each investment with intention, West explains, “Every investment we make must have a measurable outcome. Nuveen’s strategy is to preserve and create affordability for residents earning 60% of the area median income and below. TIAA and Nuveen have been investing in impact for more than 50 years and have focused on this specific strategy for over two decades. In the last 10 years alone, TIAA’s capital has preserved over 50,000 units across the U.S.”
With a full pipeline of opportunities, West is a believer of working together, and her team has grown exponentially over the last year and a half. “TIAA and Nuveen’s executive management teams have been great supporters of this sector and continue to grow our impact investing real estate team to achieve our goal of directly managing $15 billion in assets under management by 2026. We are halfway through that goal, and I have no doubt we’ll be setting new goals next year,” she adds.
Reviewing her more than 20-year career in multifamily and housing investments, West is proud of the outcomes tied to the impact investing strategy. She shares, “When I see the data on credit score enhancements, when I hear a resident moved out of our property to buy a home, or when I get a report stating 70%-plus residents have access to health care at the property that didn’t have access prior to our ownership—those things let me know I’m on the right track, but I have so much more to do.”
