Dive Brief:

• Camden Property Trust, the last of the six major apartment REITs to have its original leadership in place from its initial public offering in the 1990s, has activated its long-anticipated succession plan, transitioning to three executives who have been with the firm for more than 25 years, according to a press release.
• Alexander Jessett has been promoted to CEO and will join Camden’s Board of Trust Managers, while Laurie Baker will become the Houston-based REIT’s president and chief operating officer. Benjamin Fraker has been promoted to executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer.
• As part of the process, co-founder and CEO Richard Campo will serve as executive chairman of the Board of Trust Managers. Co-founder Keith Oden will continue in his role as executive vice chairman of the Board of Trust Managers.

Dive Insight:

While other apartment REIT founders and executives who shepherded their firms through IPOs have long retired, Campo and Oden continued to lead Camden decades after the firm went public. The REIT owns and operates 171 properties containing 58,254 units across the United States and has been recognized as one of the 100 Best Companies to work for by Fortune magazine for 18 consecutive years, most recently ranking No. 18.

Jessett joined Camden in 1999 — six years after the company went public. He most recently served as president and chief financial officer, responsible for finance, capital markets, real estate investments, construction, accounting, operations and all operations-related teams. 

“CPT has been building Alex's public profile, including leading at NAREIT meetings. He has demonstrated a full knowledge of the business, showing the big shoes left by co-founders Ric and Keith Oden won't miss a beat,” Alexander Goldfarb, managing director and senior research analyst for investment bank and financial services company Piper Sandler, wrote in a recent research report shared with Multifamily Dive.

Baker, who has been active in industry trade associations, including the National Multifamily Housing Council, also joined the firm in 1999 and most recently served as executive vice president and COO, responsible for all operational aspects for the REIT, including property operations, strategic services and sustainability. 

Fraker joined Camden in 2000 and most recently served as senior vice president of finance and treasurer, responsible for the financial planning and analysis, treasury and tax functions at the firm. He also assisted with all capital markets transactions.

Goldfarb said the announcement was “momentous as CPT was among the few long-public REITs still run by its founders.”

Over the years, Campo developed a reputation for playing thematic introductory music, covering everything from Tom Petty to Guns N' Roses, during his quarterly calls with analysts. He also provided a “window into the energy world,” since the REIT was headquartered in Houston, according to Goldfarb.

“Given CPT's family culture, we wouldn't be surprised to see Ric and Keith remain part of the earnings calls and NAREIT,” Goldfarb wrote.

As other apartment REITs like AvalonBay Communities and now-defunct Archstone focused on the coasts, Camden’s executives remained Sun Belt evangelists (though the REIT does own in Washington, D.C., and California, which it is now looking to exit).

“Ric and Keith's enduring legacy is, along with Sunbelt-peer MAA, elevating the status of the South to rival the valuations ascribed to the Coasts,” Goldfarb wrote. “No longer second fiddle as the Sunbelt has proven its allure with CPT's FFO multiple doubling since IPO.”

Over the years, Camden has been rumored as a potential merger-and-acquisition candidate among the six major apartment REITs, despite Campo’s insistence otherwise.

Goldfarb said the “management succession removes the long-held armchair M&A strategist theory that the transition game plan would be a sale.” 

“This topic was well discussed at the 2024 NAREIT, when Ric and Alex both enthusiastically made the case for independence, especially given their passion for the culture they built,” Goldfarb wrote.

Goldfarb thinks pressure will now build on the founders at other REITs across commercial real estate to exit. Among the major apartment REITs, founders have stepped down. The most recent was MAA’s CEO, Eric Bolton, who passed the leadership role to Brad Hill on April 1, 2025.

“Whether KIM or now CPT, we believe founders can easily transition to Chairman, Emeritus, or similar roles, while allowing the next generation to prosper and keep the organization dynamic,” Goldfarb wrote. “We think AVB and EQR stand out in apartments for regular C-Suite refreshment.”

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