ARK Executive Search | Retained Search for PE Real Estate Portfolio Companies

Meet ARK

We partner with PE sponsors to place the senior leadership their portfolio companies need to execute on value creation

Overview

Built for partnership at the board level

We come from inside your world—a decade operating at PE-backed real estate platforms taught us what leadership hires look like when they work, and what warning signs appear when they don't. Now we bring that operator perspective to executive search, partnering with sponsors and portfolio company boards to identify leaders who can execute on your value creation thesis from day one.

Our Approach

Context determines fit

A great leader in the wrong context will fail. We assess every search against two dimensions that most firms overlook.

Dimension One

Investment Strategy

What's the risk profile and return target? A core asset and an opportunistic development require fundamentally different leadership.

Core Opportunistic

Dimension Two

Fund Lifecycle

Where are you in the hold period? The leader who builds a platform is rarely the one who should optimize it for exit.

Build Exit

The intersection defines the profile

When we know your strategy and where you are in the lifecycle, we can identify the specific leadership profile that fits—not just a qualified candidate, but the right candidate for this situation.

01

Diagnose the context

We map your situation before we map the market. Strategy, lifecycle stage, and what's actually at stake.

02

Define the profile

The intersection tells us who you need. Not a generic spec—a specific leadership profile for this moment.

03

Deliver the fit

We present candidates who match the profile. Fewer candidates, higher conviction, better outcomes.

ARK at a Glance

38
Day average placement timeline
100%
Placement retention rate
3,000+
C-suite executive network

Our Practice Areas

We work alongside PE sponsors and portfolio companies to identify and place senior leadership across two core practice areas—built from a decade of direct experience inside these organizations.

C-Suite Search

Board-Level Executives

We partner with you to place CFOs, COOs, and CIOs who bring the institutional governance experience and board-level investor fluency your portfolio companies need to execute on value creation plans.

Senior Leadership

Platform-Level Operators

We help you build senior operating teams at the VP and SVP level—acquisitions, development, asset management, regional operations—bringing you leaders who have scaled platforms through similar growth trajectories.

Leadership

Partners who've been in your seat

J.C. Rivera
Founder

J.C. Rivera

Ten years operating inside PE-backed real estate platforms at Cushman & Wakefield and Newcastle Investors gave me a front-row seat to what works—and what breaks—when hiring senior leadership. I've seen strong hires accelerate platform performance and watched misaligned placements slow value creation. Now I partner with sponsors and boards to get those critical hires right, bringing the same diligence to search that you'd bring to underwriting.

LinkedIn →
Amanda Rivera
Managing Partner, Operations

Amanda Rivera

I built my operations discipline at Cushman & Wakefield supporting institutional brokerage teams through high-volume, complex transaction cycles. That same precision and proactive communication now defines how we run every search—you'll always know where we are in the process, what's working, and what needs adjustment. Think of us as an extension of your team, not a vendor checking boxes.

LinkedIn →

Market Intelligence

Research and analysis on executive leadership trends in PE-backed real estate platforms

The 2026 Executive Movement Wave
Market Intelligence

The 2026 Executive Movement Wave

Dec. 29, 2025
Read More

Let's work together on your
next critical hire

Whether it's a CFO search or building out your senior leadership team, we'd welcome the conversation.