Chris Lawton
About Chris Lawton
Chris is Head of Originations for Nuveen Green Capital – a leading provider of sustainable commercial real estate finance. With over 20 years of experience in commercial real estate structured finance, Chris leads NGC’s growth and originations strategies – with focus on C-PACE (Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy) deal structuring and lending.
Prior to joining Nuveen Green Capital, Chris was with Bank OZK (formerly Bank of the Ozarks), where he was Managing Director of Northeast Originations for the bank’s Real Estate Specialties Group in New York City. In his time with Bank OZK, Chris closed over $8 billion of construction and bridge facilities, formed the bank’s life-science lending program, and built the bank’s loan portfolio in Boston and Philadelphia.
Before joining Bank OZK, Chris was a Director in the New York office of Frankfurt, Germany-based DekaBank, where, in 2009, he helped establish the bank’s first U.S. office. From 2004 to 2009, he was with Hypo Real Estate Capital where he originated, structured, and closed over $4 billion of senior and mezzanine commercial real estate financings. Chris began his real estate career in 2003 as an Analyst with CBRE Capital Markets.
Chris graduated with a B.S in Business from Miami University and an M.S. in Real Estate from New York University.