Paul E. Adornato, CFA

Paul E. Adornato, CFA, is thrilled to return to his alma mater, the MIT Center for Real Estate [MSRED ‘92], to serve as Head of Industry Relations and Professional Education Programs.

Paul 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 500 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 REIT 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 Investorresearch 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 the MIT-Center for Real Estate, where he helped launch its first online Certificate course ‘Commercial Real Estate Analysis and Investments’ as Head Learning Facilitator for digital education specialist GetSmarter (a division of EdTech leader 2U (TWOU)), and where he mentors Masters students.  From 2018 to 2022 he taught 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 several PropTech startups and to Future of Cities, a regenerative placemaking development firm.

In addition to his MS in Real Estate from MIT, he holds a BA in Statistics and Economics from Dartmouth College. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and passed FINRA Series 7, 63, 86 and 87 exams.  He recently returned to the classroom as a student for two of MIT’s online short course Certificates: Data Science for Real Estate, (offered thru CRE’s Real Estate Innovation Lab) and Beyond Smart Cities, (offered thru City Science at the Media Lab).

Paul is a native and long-term resident of Brooklyn, NY where he restored an 1885 Brownstone. 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.