Tang Tang, 34

After growing up in a little town outside of Ottawa, Canada, Tang Tang has taken an untraditional path to some of the highest reaches of real estate finance. 

Ten years ago, he found himself in the startup world with little to no knowledge of commercial real estate — but he fell into the space by executing and underwriting construction loans, and eventually found a niche in the area of real estate credit and investments. 

At Cottonwood Group, Tang today specializes in active fundraising for the firm’s discretionary fund vehicles and secondary funds, while also targeting special investment opportunities with U.S. commercial real estate. The other bucket he focuses on is syndication: The firm often syndicates pieces of deals that are larger than it would like to keep on its balance sheet. Here Tang facilitates relationships with other lenders or investors who might have interest in coming into Cottonwood’s deals but aren’t yet investors in its funds. 

“I work with our CEO, Alexander Shing, on fundraising efforts, everything from the initial pitch to due diligence, subscriptions and managing that process with a team,” said Tang. “Our CEO says it’s OK to miss opportunities, but it’s not OK to lose money.” 

Cottonwood’s current fund is targeting $500 million and has already raised $300 million this year. The firm’s first fund, launched in 2021 during the pandemic, raised $200 million. Tang had his hand on the steering wheel of both fundraising efforts. 

He credits Cottonwood’s insistence on building relationships as the key to successful fundraising. 

“There’s not a silver bullet. It’s about going back and maintaining the relationships,” said Tang. “Some relationships we built in Fund II we built in Fund I, or they invested very little or not at all, but they got to know us, and we’ve kept an open dialogue.”