Alexander Kesseler, 26

An adolescent knack for reeling in the big fish might’ve presaged Alexander Kesseler’s commercial real estate career.

The Upper East Side native used to fish a lot, and once set a youth record when he landed a 187-pound bigeye tuna. These days, Kesseler works with notable tenants and big landlords as part of teams at Newmark, where the College of Charleston grad has been for four years. (His father Howard Kesseler Jr. is a vice chair at the brokerage.) 

In November, he helped organize the relocation of the Hawthorn Foundation, a school for children with special needs, to 233 Broadway in a 15-year lease for the 35,000-square-foot fourth floor. As Kesseler notes, the deal secured the private entrance and elevator that the school needed for its students. And, at the start of this year, Kesseler and team repped owner Chetrit Group on a 10-year lease of about 45,000 square feet for the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. 

A lot of deals Kesseler works on involve nonprofits or government entities (other clients include the City University of New York and the Smithsonian, the latter through the Cooper Hewitt museum in Manhattan). But he also works the private sector — and big time. For instance, he was part of the team that in late 2022 arranged an early exit for Fidelity National Information Services at 340 Madison Avenue so that it could lease the 62nd floor of the brand-new One Vanderbilt for 15 years. 

“A lot of these larger companies who had multiple large offices around New York City decided they didn’t need all that much space because their employees were working from home or hybrid,” he said. “So they pivoted and went in a different direction where they would take half as much space in much higher-quality buildings and make it their headquarters.”