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. The company has purchased and developed more than $4.4B of real estate including office buildings, hotels and high-rise mixed-use residential. Arden’s asset management group has managed more than $8.8B in assets. Arden Group in 2012 established Arden Fund Management, its real estate equity and debt fund management business and has been named by Preqin as the #1 globally Most Consistent Closed End Private Real Estate Fund Manager for both 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 was Founder/Co-Owner with Jon Bon Jovi of the Philadelphia Soul Arena Football Team. In its five-year history, Craig helped build it into the most successful team in the league and the 2008 World Champions. Craig and Jon also established and are the Co-Chairmen of the JBJ Soul Charitable Foundation, which has provided 500 housing units along with educational programs to homeless men and women. The Foundation opened Soul Kitchens in Red Bank, NJ in 2011 and Toms River, NJ in 2016 with over 60,000 meals served to date.

Craig is a licensed attorney who specialized in real estate, banking and bankruptcy law. He is a frequent guest lecturer at the Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

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 has been a member of the Arden Group team since 1996 and has 20 years of real estate accounting experience. He oversees financial management, including leading the in-house financial due diligence team for all acquisitions and post closing, and the team responsible for all financial, tax, and investor reporting. Mr. Caruso earned a B.S. in Accounting from St. Joseph’s University.

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 joined Arden Group in 2017 to focus on strategic initiatives.  Prior to joining 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.

David S. Eberle

David S. Eberle joined The Arden Group in 2017 as Managing Director Investor Relations. Mr. Eberle has over 29 years of experience in the financial sector, specifically real estate.  Prior to joining Arden Mr. Eberle was a Principal – Director of Fund Management for a large Midwest based real estate firm.  Previous to this, Mr. Eberle spent 8 years as an owner and partner in Demeter, LLC. , Demeter raised equity from and provided investment management for a portfolio of real estate for Harvard Management Company.  His responsibilities with Demeter included; developing PPM’s, interfacing with attorneys and CPA’s, identification, purchase and sale of properties, as well as all fundraising activities and investor communications. He spent nearly 10 years with W.P. Carey leaving as an Executive Director, before forming Demeter, LLC. He has held the following Securities Licenses; Series 7, General Securities and the Series 24, Principals License. He has been directly involved in raising over $5B in investor equity for real estate based assets located throughout the United States. Mr. Eberle earned a B.S. Degree in Management from St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN.

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 million square feet of commercial real estate worth over $675 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.

Josh Strelzik

Mr. Strelzik joined Arden in 2019 and performs all financial underwriting, due diligence, and monitoring for QOZ transactions.

Prior to joining Arden, Josh worked for Torchlight Investors where he structured and underwrote over $3 billion of debt and equity real estate investments. Additionally, Josh worked on the Portfolio & Funds team at Goodman Group, a global industrial developer, in São Paulo, Brazil.

Josh received an M.S. and B.S. from the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL.

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 Berger

Mr. Berger joined Arden in 2019 to focus on asset management and assist with acquisitions through financial modeling, performance analysis, and portfolio reporting.  Prior to joining Arden, Mr. Berger worked at Bluerock (BRG), where he was charged with the oversight of a multi-family portfolio comprising over $300 million in assets.  Before Bluerock, he worked in the financial services group at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Mr. Berger earned his B.S. in Accounting from Michigan State University and is a registered CPA.

Brian Nath

Mr. Nath joined Arden as Outside General Counsel in 2019 after representing Arden as outside counsel for more than 5 years on matters including acquisitions, dispositions, financings, joint ventures, leasing, asset management and fund formation. In addition to representing Arden as outside counsel, 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.