Ryan LaRue
Ryan LaRue, 31
Director at Barings
Ryan LaRue was promoted at Barings from analyst to associate to director in four years, and is now the youngest director on the firm’s real estate equity team.
That wasn’t the career plan he had in mind until he talked with someone in the industry at an alumni networking event via his alma mater, the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he majored in economics and environmental studies.
“So I chatted with him for quite a bit, and the amount of color he gave me and the way he just instructed me on the asset class as a whole … This might be something I want to pursue going forward,” LaRue recalled.
He joined Barings right out of SUNY.
LaRue leads the strategic initiatives across the Barings real estate equities team, including financing new funds, mergers and acquisitions, and proptech investments. He has worked on over 80 deals since 2019 totaling over $4 billion. These include a $440 million mixed-use development in Nashville in 2021 and a $400 million apartment development in the NoMa neighborhood of Washington, D.C. He also worked on the strategic hotel acquisition of a 372-key Westin in Atlanta in 2021.
LaRue is a member of the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries’ research committee and mentors two active venture capital funds in the proptech space. “Looking at the longer-term trend,” he said. “I guarantee you there’s going to be more innovation, more tech solutions in 10 years than there were 10 years ago. So we are leaning into that trade and the geographies that target that.” —E.F.
