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Next Generation Honoree: Resilience and Creativity Drive JBA Equities’ Jonathan Aghravi

Until July of 2018, Jonathan Aghravi was a principal at Eastern Consolidated, where he’d started the company’s capital advisory division. The following month, after Eastern closed its doors, Aghravi set up his own shop, JBA Equities, put together a small team and found new clients and business.

In a testament to Aghravi’s resilience, the JBA team had already closed more than $150 million in deals within JBA’s first two months of doing business. The company has lined up more than $500 million in financings during its first year, in line with a career that has seen Aghravi do nearly $2 billion of debt and equity transactions, mainly in New York and Los Angeles.

That’s just one of the reasons we chose Aghravi to be one of the New York 2019 Next Generation Award winners. Connect Media’s third annual Next Generation Awards recognize young leaders in the commercial real estate industry who are likely to be influential for years to come.

According to colleagues, Aghravi’s resilience and creativity have helped him execute deals where others will struggle. He will look at a difficult deal from new and different angles until he can find a successful approach.

Along with bringing creativity to deal-making solutions, Aghravi also brings a knack for connecting on a personal level. “I’ve seen him introduce himself to a stranger and within minutes they are talking like they’ve known each other for years,” says a colleague.

For comments, questions or concerns, please contact Paul Bubny

Connect

Inside The Story

Meet the Next Generation Award WinnersConnect With JBA Equities’ Aghravi

About Paul Bubny

Paul Bubny serves as Senior Content Director for Connect Commercial Real Estate, a role to which he brings 16-plus years’ experience covering the commercial real estate industry and 30-plus years in business-to-business journalism. In this capacity, he oversees daily operations while also reporting on both local/regional markets and national trends, covering individual transactions across all property types, as well as delving into broader subject matter. He produces 7-10 daily news stories per day and works with the Connect team and clients to develop longer-form content, ranging from Q&As to thought-leadership pieces. Prior to joining Connect, Paul was Managing Editor for both Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com at American Lawyer Media, where he oversaw operations at both publications while also producing daily news and feature-length articles. His tenure in B2B publishing stretches back into the print era, and he has served as Editor in Chief on four national trade publications. Since 1999, Paul has volunteered as the newsletter editor of passenger rail advocacy groups (one national, one local).