Season 4 of the ACREL Files continues with Abbe Franchot Borok, the Managing Director and Head of US Debt for BGO. With $89.7 Billion of AUM spanning 25 offices in 12 countries, BGO (formerly Bentall Green Oak) is one of the leading investment, lending and property management companies in the world. Join Jay Epstien as Abbe describes her years of experience with core, core-plus and high yield debt strategies.

Prior to BGO, Abbe was Managing Director and Head of CRE & Debt Strategies at The Amherst Group, and before that was a senior member of the commercial real estate lending team at CapitalSource. She is a member of the Board of Governors of the CRE Finance Council (CREFC) and an active member of WX, which promotes the advancement of women in commercial real estate in NYC. Abbe holds an MBA from Columbia University and a BA in Communications from the University of Pennsylvania.

Join us for the first episode of 2026 of the ACREL Files with Joseph Gyourko, the Martin Bucksbaum Professor of Real Estate, Finance and Business & Public Policy at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

In addition to being a past Chair of the Wharton Real Estate Department, Professor Gyourko has served as the Director of the Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center at Wharton for more than 25 years. Professor Gyourko’s research interests include housing markets in the United States and China, real estate finance and investments, and urban economics. He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and is a co-editor of the Journal of Urban Economics. Professor Gyourko is a past Trustee of the Urban Land Institute and a past member of the Board of Directors of the Pension Real Estate Association. He holds a BS in Economics from Duke and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Season 4 of the ACREL Files continues with Christopher Merrill, Co-Founder and Global Chief Executive Officer of Harrison Street Asset Management, interviewed by Jay Epstien.

Under Chris’s leadership, Harrison Street has grown into one of the world’s largest and most innovative investors in alternative real assets, managing more than $100 billion across real estate, infrastructure, and credit strategies. As Global CEO, Chris is responsible for the firm’s overall strategy, culture, and growth initiatives, pioneering new approaches to real assets investing and powering the next generation of opportunities across the platform.

Chris is a recipient of the Horatio Alger Award in 2025 and was named Industry Figure of the Year: Global by Private Equity Real Estate in 2022. He serves on multiple industry and nonprofit boards and holds a B.A from Roanoke College and an M.B.A. from Bayes (formerly Cass) Business School, London.