Kara McShane took over as head of the commercial real estate team at Wells Fargo at an inauspicious time: February 2020, when COVID-19 was heading toward pandemic status and offices were starting to empty out. She and her team worked tirelessly responding to hard-pressed borrowers, and a year later the CRE operation posted a 10% increase in profits.
The recovery continued in 2021, a year in which her team had one of the highest years on record for total commercial real estate originations — approximately $78 billion across balance sheet and held-for-sale loans.
One of the key transactions McShane and her team led (along with Goldman Sachs) was the $3 billion refinancing of the New York office tower One Vanderbilt — the largest single-property commercial mortgage-backed securities financing in U.S. history.
McShane joined Wells in 2010, holding the roles of head of structured real estate and head of commercial real estate capital markets and finance before moving into her current position.
Today, she manages a global business portfolio that includes approximately $126 billion in loans and $730 billion in third-party servicing. Under her leadership, the commercial real estate business saw total revenue in 2021 up 10% year over year, to $3.96 billion, and nearly 17% loan growth across all lines of business reporting into the CRE unit. Wells Fargo has been the top U.S. commercial real estate lender for the past 13 years.
McShane puts a big emphasis on a diverse workforce. She has expanded the CRE operating committee to hire leaders aligned to diverse segments, along with ESG and talent development. In 2021, McShane and the CRE group launched a pilot program with Project Destined, a nonprofit that creates opportunities for underrepresented minorities and first-generation college students in the commercial real estate and financial services industries.
As for being a woman in banking and finance, McShane said that today it could potentially be viewed as a positive when embarking on a job search, "which was not the case when I started my career." She said "it would be great to imagine a future where we don't actually need lists that focus on women. Rather, the list would focus on the most powerful executives in banking and finance, and women would, in reality, occupy their fair share of those seats."
