Decennial Group, a national real estate development and investment firm, has hired Ben Harris as senior vice president of investor relations. In this role, Harris will oversee Decennial’s capital raising efforts while also focusing on structuring and branding its various investment vehicles.
“Ben is an incredible addition to the Decennial team and is well-suited to represent our platform as we differentiate ourselves in the Opportunity Zone space,” said Shawn Clark, co-founder and managing partner at Decennial. “Ben’s core values align with Decennial’s culture and purpose of delivering impactful projects in communities that are both meaningful and profitable.”
Decennial Group is a vertically integrated investment management and development platform focused on investing in Qualified Opportunity Zones. In 2019, Decennial launched Decennial Opportunity Zone Fund I and recently announced a $30 million investment from Fifth Third Bank for Opportunity Zone projects in low-income urban and rural communities in Chicago and the greater Midwest.
“Decennial is an ambitious platform whose core values align with my own,” said Harris. “I’m excited to be part of such a talented team and I can’t wait to introduce new investors to transformative projects that are both for profit and purpose.”
Prior to joining Decennial, Harris was vice president of investor relations and business development at Origin Investments, a Chicago-based real estate investment firm. He joined Origin in 2015 and raised more than $350 million of investor capital, expanding the firm’s local footprint to a national one. Prior to that role, he was one of the first employees at Starwood Retail Group, a subsidiary of Starwood Capital that is now one of the largest managers of regional malls in the United States.
Harris holds a bachelor of business administration in real estate and urban land economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He will be based in Decennial’s Chicago office and starts in early February.
