Shawn (Zhiyuan) Hu

Beijing, China
Accounting, Macquarie University

Having launched the first-ever housing rental Quasi-REIT at record speed that shored up the for-rent apartment development boom and consequently subdued the pre-pandemic residential rent surge across major metropolises in China, Shawn is extensively experienced in game-changing and market-transforming real estate financial innovations. Beyond that, once part of the project team of Bulgari Hotel Beijing and the surrounding prime mixed-use complex, he was inspired by how art and tech piecing together add luster to real estate development. He envisions the academic rigor and world-class cohort at MIT will further his professional expertise and dive him deeper into the interplay among modern real estate, advanced financing, disruptive prop-tech, and revolutionary design. Witnessing firsthand the phenomenal leapfrog of East Asia’s manufacturing and technology sectors shaped by Wall Street and Silicon Valley, he looks forward to harnessing the similar combination of occidental prowess and oriental philosophy to level up the real estate development and investment industry, as well as to make a greater positive impact on the built environment in both developed world and emerging countries.

Before joining MIT, Shawn was a vice president at GoHigh Capital, a top-tier independent REPE and urban renovator in China, leading a team tasked with investment strategy, market analysis, feasibility study, due diligence, deal structuring, pro forma modeling, financial planning, and contract negotiation for both securitizations and acquisitions. He also held positions in the nationwide largest investment bank CITIC Securities, upmarket boutique developer Genesis Property, and Deloitte. Prior to his decade-long professional tenure, he received an undergraduate degree at Macquarie University in Sydney and became a CPA (Australia) and CFA charter-holder not long after.

When not talking about real estate, he is highly interested in behavioral sciences. He is also an avid nonfiction reader, a moviegoer, and a traveler, fascinated by exploring exotic places home and abroad.