Joel Murphy

Joel Murphy is a respected CEO, advisor, and board director known for identifying market opportunities and driving exponential, high quality growth across both public and private companies. With more than 35 years of experience in real estate development and acquisition, capital strategy, governance, relationship building, and law, he brings a trusted investment perspective and nationally recognized leadership to every organization he serves.

Murphy is holding or has held board positions with Preferred Apartment Communities (NYSE:APTS) (“PAC”), Crawford & Company (NYSE:CRD), The Orvis Company, The Westminster Schools, Trinity School, Atlanta Rotary Club, UNC-Chapel Hill, and the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).

Murphy founded in 2014 New Market Properties, a real estate platform that acquired, owned and operated grocery anchored shopping centers in Sun Belt markets, and merged the company into PAC prior to joining the PAC Board. Later, as CEO and Board Chair of PAC, he led the company to become the #1 Real Estate Investment Trust in the US in total shareholder return from 2020–2022, reshaping its growth strategy and balance sheet, and streamlining its portfolio to focus on high quality apartment communities and grocery anchored retail centers, all culminating in a privatization/sale to Blackstone in February of 2022.

Earlier in his career, Murphy served as President of the Retail Division of Cousins Properties (NYSE:CUZ), where he oversaw all aspects of the company’s retail portfolio, and in 2012 assembled the land and ventured the redevelopment of the Paces Apartments in Buckhead. He began his professional journey as a commercial real estate attorney at King & Spalding, and he is a law review graduate from the University of Georgia School of Law and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate in Economics from UNC-Chapel Hill.

He is a lifelong Buckhead resident where he lives with his wife Judy. They have 3 adult children and 4 grandchildren.