Jim Clayton, Ph.D., is a professor and the Timothy R. Price Chair and Director of the Brookfield Centre in Real Estate & Infrastructure in the Schulich School of Business at York University. The Brookfield Centre fosters a unique learning ecosystem within a community dedicated to academic excellence, experiential learning, alumni engagement, industry outreach and applied thought leadership. Schulich’s new 12-month Master of Real Estate and Infrastructure (MREI) program builds on the School’s long-existing MBA specialization in these areas.
Clayton previously worked at the Alternatives Investment group of global multi-asset investment manager Barings in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was Head of Real Estate Investment Strategy and Analytics. Barings is a subsidiary of MassMutual that combined Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers, Babson Capital, Wood Creek and Barings. At Cornerstone and then Barings, Clayton was responsible for monitoring and forecasting real estate investment and capital market trends, advising on fund and client investment, risk analytics and portfolio strategy and delivering applied research and strategic thought pieces. Prior to joining Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers, he was Director of Research at the Pension Real Estate Association (PREA), and before that held faculty positions at the University of Cincinnati and Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Clayton is a co-editor of the bi-annual special issue of The Journal of Portfolio Management devoted to real estate, a member of the Journal of Real Estate Portfolio Management editorial board, a Fellow and former president of the Real Estate Research Institute (RERI), a Fellow of Weimer School of Advanced Studies in Real Estate and Land Economics, and was recently inducted into the Lambda Alpha International (LAI) global land economics society and named a NAIOP Distinguished Fellow. He is a member of the PREA Research Committee and previously chaired the PREA Research Affinity Group. He is active in a variety of industry groups and a frequent presenter or participant at industry conferences. Clayton also teaches in professional development programs for NAIOP and the Real Property Association of Canada (REALpac), and is a coauthor, along with David Geltner (MIT), Norman Miller (University of San Diego) and Piet Eichholtz (Maastricht University), of the graduate level textbook, Commercial Real Estate Analysis and Investments, now in its third edition and published by OnCourse Learning.
Clayton holds a Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia, an MA from the University of Western Ontario, and an Honours BA from Queen’s University.