Kara McShane is a managing director, EVP and head of Commercial Real Estate (CRE) at Wells Fargo. Operating throughout the United States as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, CRE delivers a fully integrated platform of banking, financing, capital markets, and servicing solutions for commercial real estate companies. The full suite of CRE products includes balance sheet lending, CMBS origination and distribution, loan and securities financing, servicing and cash management, debt and equity for the affordable housing industry, and agency financing for multifamily assets.

Kara is based in New York City and currently serves on the Wells Fargo Management Committee, the Employee Benefit Review Committee, the Corporate & Investment Banking Operating Committee, and is an executive sponsor of the Corporate & Investment Banking Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council. She has more than 25 years of commercial real estate and fixed income experience. Since joining Wells Fargo in 2010, she has held a number of senior leadership positions, including head of Structured Real Estate and head of Commercial Real Estate Capital Markets & Finance.

Prior to her time at Wells Fargo, Kara was a managing director at Morgan Stanley and held various leadership roles there, including head of Securitized Products Group Capital Markets, co-head of Commercial Real Estate Capital Markets & Trading, and head of CMBS Capital Markets. Kara also held positions as a fixed income portfolio manager and trader responsible for the commercial real estate sector at AllianceBernstein, where she managed CMBS and REIT debt. Previously, Kara was a partner at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., where she was a fixed income portfolio manager and trader.

As an active member of the industry and community, Kara currently serves on the board of Breaking Ground, a leading NYC nonprofit for supportive and affordable housing. Kara also sits on the Board of Directors of The Real Estate Roundtable, the Board of Governors for REBNY, the (Mortgage Bankers Association) MBA's Commercial Real Estate/Multifamily Finance Board of Governors (COMBOG), and also sits on the Policy Advisory Board for The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. She was also a founding member and served on the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council (CREFC) Women’s Network Advisory Board. She previously served on the Board of Governors of CREFC’s predecessor, the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association.

Kara received her A.B. in economics from Duke University and her M.B.A. in finance and management from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business.