What You Don't Know About Mo Beler
Title: VP of NY Acquisitions, Rockwood Capital.
Photo: Mo, wife Liz, mother of the love of Mo’s life, their son, Hudson.
Exotic start to life: Born in Israel.
Standard upbringing: Lived in Merrick, Long Island, from age 4 through high school.
The village that raised him: Grandmother, four aunts (each with two kids of their own), and an uncle lived next to each other.
His real estate start: Uncle Danny owned a development company, for which Mo worked Brooklyn commercial construction sites.
The three colleges he applied to: Penn, Cornell and University of Michigan.
How he chose Michigan: The high school lacrosse, basketball and soccer player liked its sports culture, but ultimately, it was because his three best buddies from elementary school had already enrolled there.
Rough start to college life: Flunked his first course, calculus, endangering his chances to get into the school’s Ross School of Business.
How he fixed it: Picked up his grades and schmoozed his profs—appropriate considering he wanted to go into business to take advantage of his extroversion (and his bent for numbers).
Awesome end to college life: He and his Zeta Beta Tau brothers had so much fun, the frat house was pretty much condemned after his 2000 graduation.
The real reason senior year was awesome: Met Liz during second semester; married her Memorial Day Weekend five years ago. Now they live on two acres in Armonk.
After college: Joined Time Equities subsidiary Becker Brothers (founded by Robert Kantor’s two sons); first assignment was collecting rents in the very nitty-gritty Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights neighborhoods.
Next step: Eager to try the fund side, joined Rockwood in ’08; made VP two years ago.
Thanks, Mom: A private banker, Mo’s mother introduced him to a client’s son, Jeff Kay of Stone Street Properties, who had a 270-apartment JV acquisition opp if Mo could close quickly. He slept very little over 10 days, but put down a $9M hard deposit on the $90M portfolio just in time.
Life-changing moment: Injured his MCL while playing soccer at Chelsea Piers in ’09; immobile for two weeks, he developed a blood clot in his lung, a pulmonary embolism. Luckily, it just meant being on a blood thinner for six months, but the dangerous situation and support from Rockwood all the way to the top of the food chain kick-started his drive and increased his loyalty to the company.
