Camden Property Trust, one of the nation’s leading multifamily real estate investment trusts, is positioning itself for the future with changes to its senior leadership team. As part of long-term succession planning, Alex Jessett was promoted to CEO and has joined the board of trust managers at the end of March, while co-founder and CEO Ric Campo will serve as executive chairman of the board.
In addition, Laurie Baker has been promoted to president and chief operating officer, and Benjamin Fraker has been elevated to executive vice president, chief financial officer (CFO), and treasurer.
Jessett joined Camden 27 years ago, having served 13 years as the CFO and two years as the president. Jessett and Baker started within a month of each other, and he hired Fraker 26 years ago.
“Camden is a fantastic company, and a key to maintaining that is having continuity,” he says. “Let’s keep the folks who have been a large part of making this a great company and make sure they remain in leadership roles and that they have expanded duties. I think we are very well set up for the future.”
Jessett says he feels incredibly fortunate to be in this new role as well as to be part of the multifamily industry.
“When I was in college, I knew I wanted to do real estate,” he says. “And I thank every lucky star out there that I picked multifamily, that I picked Camden, and that I picked a company that is focused on the Sun Belt because that is where the strength of the industry is and will be.”
A big priority for Camden this year is to exit California, hoping to sell its portfolio of 11 communities in the state by the summer. According to Jessett, the plan is to take the proceeds of that sale and reinvest into its existing markets, including acquiring new multifamily communities, as well as buy some of its shares back.
“This is a refocus to the core Sun Belt markets in which we operate,” he notes. “We will also reduce our exposure to our larger markets, making sure we have better diversification.”
Jessett shares that Camden likes to follow where its residents go. In its markets, 75% of the 25- to 34-year-old demographic live in the suburbs. “You’ll see that we are going to expand our suburban footprint a little bit more to make sure that we are meeting our customers where they are,” he adds.
In addition, he touts the ultimate strength for the REIT is its balance sheet. Camden is rated A-, or the equivalent, by the three major credit ratings agencies, with only a couple of handfuls of REITs falling into that category.
“We’re an incredibly strong company. We’re in the right markets. We’re making sure that we enhance being in the right markets. We’ve got the right product type. We are very strong and very well suited for the future,” he shares.
Camden Property Trust ranked No. 18 on the National Multifamily Housing Council’s top apartment owners list as of Jan. 1 and No. 32 on the top managers list with 58,759 units owned and managed. The REIT, with approximately 1,600 associates, also was recognized for the 19th consecutive year as one of the best workplaces in the nation. It ranked No. 13 on Fortune’s 29th annual 100 Best Companies to Work For list.
Communication is key to that employee satisfaction, ensuring team members understand that what they’re doing is incredibly important.
“There’s something very noble about providing housing. This is where people’s memories are made. This is where people make connections,” he says. “When you believe you’re doing something important it makes a difference, it creates happiness. We’re going to keep showing our team members all the respect that we can, and we’re going to keep making sure that we continue to share our successes with our team members.”
He adds that Camden’s view has always been that happy team members lead to happy residents, in turn leading to happy shareholders.
“We are going to continue to make sure that we have happy team members, and you have to continually adapt to that because their needs are changing,” Jessett says. “Especially when we move into this timeframe where technology, and in particular artificial intelligence (AI), is going to become so prevalent, what we have to do is make sure we’re constantly listening to our team members, and we’re making sure we give them the best tools that they possibly can have to ensure their success.”
Camden has prided itself on being a technology-forward company, being early adopters of proptech solutions that are now common across the industry. Jessett says the REIT will continue to be a leader in the space, with technology being one of the biggest opportunities for multifamily today.
“We think that there are benefits to using AI in every single line item on an income statement—from revenues all the way through the expense categories,” he says. “I need to be clear, the focus is not to find ways to reduce headcount. Our focus is to find the best tools we can to give to our existing team members to help them do their jobs better and more efficiently and create a better customer experience for our residents and our potential residents. I think the next five years are going to be exciting in our business, in terms of what we can all do through technology to create and enhance the customer experience.”