News release

Kevin Davis named to Cornell’s CREF advisory board

Davis, a Senior Managing Director with JLL’s Hotels & Hospitality Group, will partner with CREF to enhance the educational experience of the next generation of hospitality executives 

October 18, 2021

Kristen Murphy

Capital Markets, Hotels & Hospitality and Value & Risk Advisory PR
+1 617 848 1572

NEW YORK, Oct. 18, 2021 – JLL’s Hotels & Hospitality Group announced today that Senior Managing Director Kevin Davis has been named to Cornell’s Center for Real Estate and Finance (CREF) advisory board.

CREF’s advisory board is composed of senior-level leaders in the industry and among other initiatives, provides mentoring, internship and employment opportunities to enhance the educational experience of graduate and undergraduate students within The Hotel School at Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business.

“I appreciate the opportunity to join industry peers and colleagues on CREF’s advisory board, and fostering a greater connection between Cornell students and faculty, and JLL,” Davis said.

Davis is a Senior Managing Director in JLL’s Hotels & Hospitality Group and Head of Debt Capital Markets for Hotels, where he is responsible for raising debt and joint venture equity for hotel owners, as well as leading hospitality-focused restructurings, recapitalizations, loan sales and UCC foreclosures. Since joining JLL in 2013, Mr. Davis has been involved in over $20 billion of financings ranging from ground-up construction projects to stabilized properties. Widely recognized in the industry, Davis won the 2019 Jack A. Shaffer Financial Advisor of the Year Award at the American Lodging Investment Summit, which honors industry leaders that showcase outstanding ability to foster client relationships and close deals that benefit both parties in a transaction.

Mr. Davis holds a B.A. with Honors in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

JLL’s Hotels & Hospitality Group has completed more transactions than any other hotels and hospitality real estate advisor over the last five years, totaling $83 billion worldwide. The group’s 350-strong global team in over 20 countries also closed more than 7,350 advisory, valuation and asset management assignments. Our hotel valuation, brokerage, asset management and consultancy services have helped more hotel investors, owners and operators achieve high returns on their assets than any other real estate advisor in the world.

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About JLL

JLL (NYSE: JLL) is a leading professional services firm that specializes in real estate and investment management. JLL shapes the future of real estate for a better world by using the most advanced technology to create rewarding opportunities, amazing spaces and sustainable real estate solutions for our clients, our people and our communities. JLL is a Fortune 500 company with annual revenue of $16.6 billion in 2020, operations in over 80 countries and a global workforce of more than 92,000 as of June 30, 2021. JLL is the brand name, and a registered trademark, of Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated. For further information, visit jll.com.

About CREF

The mission of The Cornell Center for Real Estate and Finance (“CREF”) is to accomplish three primary goals: First, CREF will act as the nexus between the practical real estate industry and the broad Cornell University community (faculty, students and alumni). In this context, CREF will leverage the engagement of practicing real estate professionals to enhance the educational experience of Cornell’s graduate and undergraduate students studying real estate and to inform our Real Estate Faculty regarding industry trends to better prepare them as they design and teach courses. Second, CREF will be the leading purveyor of thought leadership on the topics of real estate and finance and to disseminate that thought leadership to the academic and practitioner real estate community. Finally, CREF will advance the reputation of Cornell University, The SC Johnson College of Business and the School of Hotel Administration as an educational and thought-leadership force within the real estate community both domestically and internationally.