Erkan Kilic, 30

OK, so headlines aren’t everything (whispers the journalist), but if you don’t know Erkan Kilic personally, you’ll certainly know some of his deals. 

Over his seven-year tenure at Blackstone, Kilic has worked on more than $26 billion of investments across 30 transactions, including the Signature Bank deal. Kilic helped Blackstone’s entry into a joint venture with CPPIB, Rialto and the FDIC to acquire a $17 billion loan portfolio from the bank. He also worked on Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies’ purchase of a $1 billion loan portfolio from PBB.

The Signature deal was a career-defining deal for Kilic, due to the sheer scale of the transaction and speed of execution required. “We only had about eight to 10 weeks to close, and it encompassed 3,000 loans across multiple property types, geographies and borrower profiles,” he said. “In order to submit a binding bid on a $17 billion portfolio, we had to think outside the box. Everything was moving really fast, and we had to land the plane under immense scrutiny.” 

Kilic’s resume also includes impressive work on the affordable housing side. He played a pivotal role in both establishing and expanding Blackstone’s affordable and low-income housing tax credit equity platform, April Housing, driving $300 million of investments across three transactions in the process. Working on affordable housing investment has fundamentally reshaped how he thinks about risk, scalability and impact, he said.

“It taught me how to build a new investment vertical from the ground up, and everything from structuring affordable transactions to aligning with internal and external stakeholders,” he said. “It gave me a lot of exposure to public-private partnerships and policy-driven capital, which is increasingly relevant as housing affordability becomes a defining issue in real estate. Blackstone’s entry into that market made a huge impact, and I’m really proud of what we built.”

Kilic grew up in Istanbul. “Istanbul has undergone a significant transformation due to earthquake-driven zoning changes I saw firsthand,” he said. “Entire neighborhoods were reshaped, and real estate wasn’t just about buildings, but about public safety, economic resilience and quality of life. It left a big impression on me at a young age, and I realized that real estate is the largest asset class in the world, but it’s still governed by legacy thinking and outdated structures. I wanted to be in the field and work somewhere where I could drive meaningful change.” 

Sounds like Kilic has firmly accomplished that goal.