Alexandra Coleman joined Hudson Valley Property Group (HVPG) in 2016 when it was just a four-person team. She came to the firm from real estate tech, where she enjoyed the transactional and legal components but was not feeling rewarded by the work.
“Affordable housing stuck out as an asset class with real soul, where I might be able to combine my background in policy, law, and transactional real estate to help someone somewhere and have that real level of impact I was looking for,” the 39-year-old says.
When she joined the team, she says she was a “sponge.” “I originally joined working a lot on the acquisitions deal sourcing side, but then as our pipeline grew, it became just stepping in more and more,” she adds.
Over the past decade, Coleman has held roles spanning deal-sourcing, fundraising, marketing, acquisitions project management, and operations. Her institutional knowledge from wearing all the different hats has led to her appointment as the firm’s first chief of staff.
Under her leadership, HVPG has grown from 900 units to over 15,400 units and to about 45 employees from the initial single room office of four.
As chief of staff for the entrepreneurial firm, she works on strategic planning and ways to help it continue to scale.
Some of her key accomplishments in the role include designing its annual strategic planning and goals program, ownership of its artificial intelligence roadmap, the launch and design of its energy compliance and utility data tracking initiative, and the procurement and onboarding of new project management and workflow software solutions.
“I’ve been given such a unique opportunity at HVPG,” Coleman says. “It’s very much a generalist role where I also get to hop in and act like a specialist when needed. I always like to learn something new and take on daunting projects that might feel overwhelming at the beginning, but then we push to the finish line and it's really satisfying. For me at the end of the day, it’s all about the mission of our work and the incredible team of people I’m building this with; I feel a real calling and duty to ensure all people have a quality, safe, and affordable place to call home.”