Riparian’s senior management team brings an average of nearly 25 years of experience in real estate investment, asset management and financing. We combine high levels of financial sophistication with a hands-on philosophy born of long experience in a business where the best laid plans often die a “death by a thousand cuts” – and the difference between a glossy marketing package and delivering a great outcome boils down to consistency, dependability and attention to detail.
Our Team
Kris Garin
Principal & Chief Executive Officer
Kris is responsible for sourcing and underwriting Riparian’s acquisitions pipeline, capital markets and setting Riparian’s strategic vision. He also serves as a member of Riparian’s Investment Committee.
Co-Founder of Good Food Markets and a founding member of Oasis Community Partners’ board of directors, Kris served from 2011 to 2019 in Robert W. Baird & Co.’s Real Estate Investment Banking group, where most recently he led Baird’s coverage of public and private Multifamily real estate operators. Kris has served as a trusted advisor to best-in-class management teams in the workforce, low-income, student and senior housing sub-sectors, advising on transactions ranging from asset-level joint ventures and private placements, to entity-level investments, recapitalizations and platform sales for private operators, to Initial Public Offerings. At Baird he was directly involved in more than $725 million in apartment portfolio sales and recapitalizations, and more than $700 million in equity Joint Venture, Entity-level and M&A transactions, primarily in the multifamily space.
Kris entered the Real Estate industry following nearly a decade-long career in journalism, where he reported for leading national publications including the New York Daily News, Harper’s, The Atlantic, and Conde Nast Traveler. Kris also authored Devils on the Deep Blue Sea, a business history of the cruise ship industry, the first Let’s Go travel guide to Yemen, and the New York Times bestselling Win Forever, co-written with Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, and has appeared on national news outlets including NPR, CNN, NBC and others.
Kris holds an undergraduate Degree from Harvard College and an MBA from Georgetown University, and served as a gunner’s mate in the Royal Norwegian Navy.
James Anderson
Principal
James is responsible for overseeing and optimizing all aspects of Riparian’s frontline Asset Management capabilities, with a particular focus on project & construction management, repair & maintenance, and collections. He also serves on Riparian’s Investment Committee.
A founding partner of Good Food Markets, James is also a founding partner of Westside Development Companies and NOVO Development Corporation and has been involved in real estate acquisitions, development, construction and management for the past 25 years. James was instrumental in all aspects of NOVO’s growth strategy to acquire, reposition and manage value-add multifamily units in DC, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Charleston, SC, growing the portfolio to 1,600 units. Being an Engineering student at Duke University, and with a keen interest in construction, James began with the renovation and restoration of high-end single-family homes for others, and then for himself. The projects continued to increase in size, with a focus on multi-family residential. The management arm was created, the geographic range increased, and today the company owns and manages 32 projects totaling more than 1,800 apartment units and worth in excess of $150 Million.
James is also a principal of DMV Urgent Care LLC, which currently operates an urgent care facility in Warrenton, VA
Michael Curran
Senior Advisor
As Managing Partner of Curran Advisors, Michael advises Riparian on long-term organizational and management strategy.
Michael brings extensive track record in institutional real estate acquisitions, development and portfolio management. Prior to joining Riparian, he served as Senior Managing Director of Centerline Capital Group, a subsidiary of Centerline Holding Company, where he led the Asset Management Group, which comprises the Portfolio Management, Performing Assets, Special Asset Management, and Construction Risk Management divisions. He was responsible for overseeing the performance of the firm’s equity portfolio consisting of 1,200 properties and 150,000 units of housing nationally, and oversaw a staff of 45 colleagues.
Earlier in his career, he was president and chief executive officer of The Enterprise Social Investment Corporation (ESIC), a national for-profit subsidiary of the Enterprise Foundation, where he specialized in the financing and development of market-rate and affordable housing, and managed a housing portfolio of 900 properties valued at more than $4 billion. Michael started his real estate career at MetLife, where he joined after working in private practice as an asset manager and went on to lead the firm’s Mid-Atlantic office.
Michael holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Louisville, School of Law and a Master’s of Public Administration from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.