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Jay Sugarman

Jay Sugarman is chairman and chief executive officer of Safehold, the public real-estate investment trust focused on long-term ground leases. He has served on the company’s board since 1996 and as CEO since 1997, first building iStar and then establishing Safehold as a dedicated ground-lease platform. Before founding the company, he managed private investment funds for the Burden and Ziff families. Safehold board biography · 2026 proxy statement

Updated

Known For

  • Building two public real-estate companies from inception as founder and CEO, according to Safehold’s director biography.
  • Developing a public-company strategy around ground leases, in which the land and building ownership are separated through long-term lease structures. Safehold’s 2023 merger with iStar made iStar the surviving corporation, which then adopted the Safehold name.
  • A leadership tenure spanning the company’s transition from a broader real-estate investment platform to a ground-lease-focused REIT. The description of Sugarman’s role and expertise comes from company filings; no individual transaction totals are attributed to him. Safehold biography · 2026 proxy

Career

Before forming the company that became Safehold, Sugarman managed private investment funds for the Burden and Ziff families. The company says he has served on its board since 1996 and as CEO since 1997. He led Old SAFE as chairman and CEO beginning in 2017, then continued to lead the combined company after its 2023 merger with iStar; the surviving company took the Safehold name. He remains chairman and CEO. Sugarman studied economics at Princeton and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. Safehold board biography · 2026 proxy statement

Related Pages

  • Investor People Hub
  • National Investor Benchmarks Hub
  • Safehold
  • CRE Capital Markets
  • Source: Top 200 Global CRE People and Families

Sources