Chris Riley is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Blaze Partners. Mr. Riley is responsible for the strategic oversight and growth of the Company and jointly manages all day to day activities of Blaze. Specifically, he is actively involved in the creation of investment strategies, managing partnership relationships, capital markets activity, investment origination, and oversight of portfolio performance and execution. In this capacity, he has helped establish Blaze Partners as a pre-eminent boutique multifamily operating platform with a growing footprint across the Southeast and a portfolio approaching $1B in gross asset value.
Prior to co-founding Blaze Partners, Chris was a Managing Director of Investments at Greystar Real Estate Partners, where he spent 14 years serving in multiple key leadership roles across the company. Most recently, he served as the portfolio manager overseeing Greystar’s flagship, value-add acquisition fund series, an aggregate real estate portfolio totaling over $4.5 billion in assets across the United States. Previously, he was the National Director of Asset Management where he led a team of professionals responsible for the execution of asset strategies across Greystar’s acquisition and development platform. In addition, Chris also opened Greystar’s Southeast office in Atlanta and was responsible for the acquisition of over $150 million of multi-family communities, management of over 5,500 units, and managed a team of more than 250 employees. Prior to Greystar, Chris was with SunTrust Bank in Atlanta in the Corporate and Investment Bank.
Mr. Riley received his MBA from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and his BA from the University of South Carolina.
Chris and his family reside in Charleston, SC.