Georgetown Students Selected as AFIRE Fellows

For the third year, two students from the Master’s in Real Estate program at Georgetown University are joining select students from other universities to be recognized as Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE) fellows. This program offers multigenerational mentorship for young professionals seeking to move into leadership roles in global real estate asset management. AFIRE was formed 37 years ago to allow institutional investors and operators to share insights and best practices.

Sam D’Aquila and Wilfredo Marchan were chosen by the program’s faculty from among dozens of applicants to represent Georgetown as AFIRE fellows. The AFIRE program pairs fellows with rising leaders in middle management, who are also paired with senior leaders. Commenting on his experience at a recent AFIRE meeting held in Washington, D.C., Marchan found the experience to be “eye opening,” saying, “We could see firsthand how senior leaders make their decisions. With a background managing construction projects, I came to Georgetown to better understand what was in the developers’ heads—why were they making the decisions they made.” 

Being in classes with other students who were lenders, architects, or developers helped him to see things in new ways. Building on his professional and educational experience, Marchan accepted a new position as a development project manager for Kayne Andersen Real Estate in Florida, where he will be working on student housing and medical office projects. A top soccer player as an undergraduate at West Virginia University, he mentioned that he had met new friends at AFIRE who are also soccer players. The informal networking at Georgetown and within these organizations helps to build relationships that produce not only sources of information but also friends with whom he could share experiences. 

Like Marchan, D’Aquila shares a background in college athletics as the former captain of her NCAA DII field hockey team. After four years as an analyst and portfolio manager at Citizens Bank, she joined J.P. Morgan, where she now serves on the market leadership team in Los Angeles. Sam enrolled in the Master’s in Real Estate program as an online student and took advantage of mixed-modality courses, including Exploring Opportunities in Europe, where she joined a dozen students in Fall 2024 to attend Expo Real in Munich and tour development projects in Berlin and Warsaw.  

“Beyond the banking sector, AFIRE has broadened my perspective on the real estate industry as a whole. With members from 24 different countries, the program’s global reach has provided me with fresh insights and a new lens through which to view my career,” D’Aquila said.  “I've had the privilege of working with two remarkable women—an emerging leader at an investment management company and a C-suite executive at an international pension plan. Despite being at different stages in our careers, we’ve built a strong support system, sharing invaluable insights on career advancement.”