Executive Bios

Craig A. Spencer

Mr. Spencer is the Chairman & CEO of Arden Group, established in 1989 as a fully integrated real estate company focusing on acquiring, developing, and managing high-quality real estate assets in the top 25 US MSA’s.

Arden has acquired approximately $6 billion of properties and asset managed more than $11 billion of commercial real estate assets. Mr. Spencer is the Principal of Arden Fund Management, its real estate equity and debt fund management business with offices in Philadelphia, New York, Tampa, Miami, Minneapolis, and Newport Beach. Arden Group has been consistently ranked globally as a top performing Private Fund Manager by both Cambridge Associates and Preqin including Preqin’s #1 global ranking in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

In addition to leading Arden, Craig has participated in several non-real estate ventures including the acquisition and subsequent sale of Admiralty Bank to Royal Bank of Canada in February 2003. He was also a founding board member of Anchor Commercial Bank based in Palm Beach, Florida.

Craig co-founded and co-owned the Philadelphia Soul Arena Football Team with Jon Bon Jovi, helping the team become the 2008 World Champions. In 2006 Craig and Jon established and are the Co-Chairmen of the JBJ Soul Charitable Foundation, which to date has provided 700 housing units along with educational programs to homeless men and women. The Foundation through its Soul Kitchens has served over 200,000 meals.

Mr. Spencer attended the University of Florida and earned a J.D. from Georgia State University College of Law. Craig is a licensed attorney who specialized in real estate, banking, and bankruptcy law. Craig is a research sponsor and frequent guest lecturer at the Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Georgia State Law School Board of Visitors.

Thomas P. Gerrity

Dr. Gerrity has been an investment partner with Arden Group for the past 18 years and is Co-General Partner of Arden Fund I and II. He served as the 11th Dean of the Wharton School from 1990-1999. Prior to his tenure at Wharton, Dr. Gerrity was the founder and CEO for 20 years of the Index Group, a highly recognized leader in business re-engineering and strategic consulting. He serves on the Board of Directors of two public companies and previously served on the boards of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and several technology leaders’ LP Funds. Dr. Gerrity earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering and computer sciences from MIT and a Ph.D. in Management from the Sloan School at MIT. He was also a Rhodes Scholar in Economics at Oxford University.

Joseph Caruso

Mr. Caruso joined Arden in 1996, has 25 years of real estate experience and previously served as Arden’s CFO.  As COO he has oversight of the ongoing business operations for the Arden Platform including Asset Management, Property Management, Finance, Compliance, IT and Human Resources.  Joseph earned a B.S. in Accounting from St. Joseph’s University.  He has been directly involved in $6.0b+ of transactions including hotels, office buildings, industrial ,retail, and residential assets.

Richard Pietropoli

Mr. Pietropoli has been with Arden Group since 1995 and has 29 years of hotel and office building operations and construction experience. He leads the operational due diligence team for all acquisitions and post closing, and oversees the ongoing property management and operations of all assets. Prior to joining Arden Group, Mr. Pietropoli worked with Servico Hotel Company and Ritz-Carlton Hotel Corporation. He earned an A.B.A. from Penn State University.

René Bardel

Mr. Bardel has been with Arden Group since 2012 and has over 30 years of hotel acquisition and operational experience. He leads the Arden Group hotel acquisition team and, post closing, heads the hotel asset management team. Prior to joining Arden Group, Mr. Bardel spent almost 30 years in senior level executive roles with one of Arden Group’s long time joint venture partners, The Continental Companies, which was the second largest hotel development and management company in the nation.

Greg Denton

Greg Denton brings 30 years of hotel investment and asset management experience and has executed on over $6 billion of hotel transactions. Prior to joining Arden Group, Mr. Denton held executive positions at several prominent hospitality investment companies, including The Related Group of Florida, Gencom Group, and CNL Hospitality REIT where he spearheaded the acquisition of over 100 hotel properties in nine countries. He received his bachelors and masters degrees from the Cornell School of Hotel Administration and has served as an adjunct professor teaching hospitality finance and investment courses at Cornell University, Florida International University, and Washington State University. He obtained the MAI designation from the Appraisal Institute and served on the board of the Hospitality Asset Managers Association (HAMA) where he co-edited two editions of the definitive text on Hotel Asset Management published by the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

Shike Goedar

Mr. Goedar has been engaged by Arden Group as an independent consultant since 2017 and focuses on our strategic initiatives.  Prior to becoming a consultant with Arden, Shike was employed in the real estate investment group at Colony NorthStar (formerly NorthStar Asset Management), where he worked on entity-level investments in private and public real estate companies, strategic equity joint ventures and business development / capital formation strategies, including, forming the investment thesis for NorthStar’s entry in the industrial real estate sector, and leading the acquisitions of approximately $800mm (over 14MM SF) of value-add industrial real estate.  Mr. Goedar received a Bachelor of Business Administrator from Georgia State University and a Masters of Business Administration with a concentration in Entrepreneurship and Management from the Stern School of Business at New York University.

James Tucker

Mr. Tucker joined Arden in 2015 and has 7 years of real estate industry experience.  James has invested in and managed over 2.5 million square feet of commercial real estate worth over $900 million.  James is responsible for acquisition and asset management activities for office investments.

Prior to joining Arden, James worked for Accenture where he provided management consulting services for large multinational clients.  James received an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Engineering Management from Duke University, and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Bucknell University.

Matthew L Toukatly

MATTHEW L. TOUKATLY, ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT, DEBT ORIGINATIONS – Matthew joined Arden in 2017 to focus on originating and underwriting debt investments. Previously, Matt worked on the Mezzanine Acquisitions & Originations Group in Global Real Assets at J.P. Morgan Investment Management. During his tenure, Matt transacted on mezzanine and subordinate debt investments in excess of $350 million. Prior to J.P. Morgan Investment Management, Matt worked on the CMBS & Mezzanine Originations Group at Redwood Trust. While at Redwood Trust, he assisted in the origination of approximately $275 million of first mortgage and mezzanine financing on various asset classes located throughout the United States. Matthew earned a B.B.A. from Villanova University where he graduated Cum Laude with triple major in Real Estate, Economics and Finance.

Christian D. Vergilio

Mr. Vergilio joined Arden in 2017 to focus on debt originations and office acquisitions. Prior to joining Arden, Christian worked at Angelo, Gordon & Co., as a member of the Acquisitions Team in the Net Lease Strategy vertical,where he was responsible for underwriting industrial, office and mixed-use transactions. Christian worked with sponsors to structure sale-leaseback, forward takeout and build-to-suit transactions. Christian earned his B.B.A. from Villanova University where he graduated with a major in Finance and Real Estate.

Jonathan C. Cooke

Mr. Cooke joined Arden in 2019 to assist with acquisitions and asset management for industrial properties.

Previously, Mr. Cooke spent seven years at Amstar, a Denver-based real estate private equity firm, where he was responsible for underwriting acquisition and development opportunities and managing a portion of the firm’s portfolio across multiple product types.

Mr. Cooke earned a BS in Commerce and an MBA from the University of Virginia.

Brian Nath

Brian is a real estate attorney with Vos-IP and has been engaged by Arden as the firm’s Outside General Counsel since 2019. Prior to being engaged through Vos-IP as Outside General Counsel, Brian was an attorney at Cozen O’Connor and represented Arden for more than 5 years on matters including acquisitions, dispositions, financings, joint ventures, leasing, asset management and fund formation. In addition to representing Arden, Brian’s previous experience includes the representation of other private equity funds, family offices, public and privately held REITs and other investors and operators in connection with complex commercial real estate transactions involving office, industrial, hospitality, multifamily and retail properties. Brian earned his law degree and MBA from Temple University and a Bachelor of Science degree from Penn State University.

Barbara Rea

Ms. Rea joined Arden Group in 2021 as Chief Operating Officer of Arden Logistics Management. Prior to joining Arden, Rea was the Chief Operating Officer and founding team member for BKM Capital Partners, a $1.7B AUM light industrial fund manager, where she played a critical role in building the infrastructure, raising $750 million in institutional equity, creating a profitable operating platform and hiring more than 100 employees to build the business and brand. Ms. Rea had oversight of the ongoing business operations, including Investor Relations & Capital Raise, Asset Management, Property Management & Leasing, Human Resources, Technology and Marketing departments.

Ms. Rea graduated cum laude with a Marketing Communications degree from Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA where she still participates as a Mentor-In-Residence. Rea’s thought leadership on operational efficiency, culture creation, inspiring high performing teams and diversity and inclusion has been featured in many publications, podcasts, conferences, and she has been a guest lecturer at University of California, Irvine.

Alfred Dilmore

Mr. Dilmore joined Arden in 2021 and has nearly 20 years of finance and accounting experience in real estate and financial services. Prior to joining Arden, Mr. Dilmore was a Senior Vice President at Link Logistics, Blackstone’s domestic industrial real estate operating platform, where he was responsible for the accounting and financial reporting for over $10 billion of assets. Prior to that, Mr. Dilmore was the Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Chief Accounting Officer of a vertically integrated real estate investment trust focused on providing a comprehensive set of debt financing options to the real estate industry and operating a portfolio of commercial real estate assets covering the apartment, office, industrial and retail asset classes. Mr. Dilmore also held early career positions at Freddie Mac in accounting policy and at Deloitte & Touche LLP in advisory and audit roles serving a variety of large financial institutions.

Fred earned a B.S. in Accounting from The College of New Jersey and is an active CPA.

Greg Strickland

• B.S. in Construction Management from Bradley University