Alexandra Cooley Named to Commercial Observer's 2026 Power Finance List

Nuveen Green Capital's CEO and Chief Investment Officer rises to #35, recognized for record-breaking growth in C-PACE financing industry

Alexandra (Ali) Cooley, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Nuveen Green Capital (NGC), has been named to Commercial Observer's 2026 Power Finance list, ranking #35 among the most influential commercial real estate finance professionals in the country, up from #38 the prior year. She was honored alongside Jason Hernandez, Global Head of CRE Debt at Nuveen Real Estate.

Commercial Observer is the premier media and information services company serving commercial real estate leaders, and its annual Power Finance ranking is one of the industry's most respected recognitions of excellence in real estate finance. Ali's continued rise up the rankings reflects both her individual leadership, and the exceptional momentum NGC has built as a platform.

A Record-Breaking Year for NGC

Ali's recognition comes on the heels of a landmark year for Nuveen Green Capital. In 2025, NGC nearly doubled its C-PACE originations, closing $2.1 billion in volume compared to $1.2 billion in 2024 — a new record for the firm and a testament to the growing institutional acceptance of C-PACE as a mainstream financing solution.

That growth was punctuated by two historic transactions. In September 2025, NGC closed what was at the time the largest C-PACE financing ever executed — a $290 million package for Two Roads Development's Pendry Hotel & Residences in Downtown Tampa, Florida. Just four months later, NGC surpassed its own record with a $465 million C-PACE financing for Post Brothers' office-to-residential conversion, The Geneva, in Washington, D.C., which is to date the largest C-PACE transaction in the history of the asset class.

In addition to being big milestones for NGC, these transactions also represented the broader maturation of C-PACE as a tool capable of supporting the most complex, high-profile commercial real estate transactions in the country.

Leadership Built on a Foundation of Innovation

Ali's path to the top of the industry is deeply rooted in the origins of C-PACE itself. She co-founded what is now Nuveen Green Capital in 2015, then known as Greenworks Lending, alongside Jessica Bailey, after the two met while developing and launching Connecticut's C-PACE program, which became the first successful C-PACE program in the United States.¹

From the very beginning, Ali has been instrumental in establishing C-PACE as an institutional asset class. Under her leadership, the firm completed the industry's first rated securitization of C-PACE assets in 2017, followed by a second in 2018, demonstrating to the market that C-PACE was as attractive to institutional investors as it was to Sponsors. Today, with over $5 billion in capital deployed across over 700 transactions, NGC stands as a national leader in C-PACE financing.

In October 2025, Ali took on an expanded role, being promoted to CEO in addition to her existing position as Chief Investment Officer, a reflection of her contributions to the firm's growth and her vision for its future.

The Institutionalization of C-PACE

Ali's recognition arrives at a pivotal moment for the C-PACE market. As she noted in her Commercial Observer feature:

"We had a lot of really exciting things happening in 2025 with the institutionalization of the C-PACE product and people really understanding how it could help projects come to fruition and senior lenders getting a lot more comfortable with it. We were able to expand what C-PACE could do last year and expanded into new markets and work with some of the highest quality Sponsors out there."

That institutionalization is evident across the market. The product has evolved from a creative gap-filling solution to a proactive tool that sophisticated Sponsors use to optimize their capital stacks, lower their weighted average cost of capital, and enhance returns across the full property lifecycle. NGC has been at the center of that transformation, not just as a capital provider, but as an industry builder.

Looking Ahead

With C-PACE now available in 40 states and growing, and NGC poised for continued expansion in 2026, Ali's vision for the firm is as ambitious as it is grounded. NGC is now part of Nuveen's newly formed $36 billion Infrastructure vertical, an expanded platform with the resources and reach to continue pioneering asset classes that achieve public benefit through private investment.

We congratulate Ali on this well-deserved honor and look forward to continuing to redefine what C-PACE can do for the commercial real estate market in 2026 and beyond.

With over $5 billion originated, Nuveen Green Capital is a national leader in sustainable commercial real estate financing solutions and an affiliate of Nuveen, the $1 trillion+^[1] asset manager and wholly owned subsidiary of TIAA. To learn more about how C-PACE financing can work for your project, contact our team.