Terry Brown

Terry Brown is the Managing Partner and a Co-Founder of Asana Partners, a Charlotte-based retail real estate private equity firm he launched in the fall of 2015 with two former colleagues, using only the three founders' own capital. In roughly a decade the firm has grown to more than $9 billion in assets under management, over 85 neighborhoods across 25 U.S. markets, and roughly 130 employees. Brown brings more than three decades of experience across real estate, retail strategy, capital markets, and organizational leadership.

Brown began his career as a U.S. Army officer (Army ROTC scholarship, active duty at Fort Sill, Oklahoma) before joining Arthur Andersen, where he spent about 17 years. He rose to become CEO of Andersen Corporate Finance, LLC, the firm's U.S. broker-dealer / M&A subsidiary, overseeing more than 1,500 professionals — a role he held until Andersen collapsed in the wake of the Enron scandal.

EDENS, one of the largest open-air retail real estate owners and operators in the U.S., had been one of Brown's advisory clients at Andersen beginning in 1994. In 2002 he moved from advisor to operator, becoming Chairman and CEO of EDENS, a position he held for roughly 13 years. During that tenure he reshaped the company's culture, roughly tripled the size of the business, and navigated it through the 2008–2010 financial crisis before departing to found Asana Partners in 2015 alongside Jason Tompkins (former EDENS CFO) and Sam Judd.

Brown graduated *summa cum laude* from the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business (BBA, 1984). He was a 2011 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year regional winner and national finalist, received UGA's Terry College Distinguished Alumni Award (2013), and was honored with the UGA Alumni Merit Award in 2025. He has served nine years on the UGA Foundation Board of Trustees, including two terms as treasurer, and is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

• Invests through institutional, closed-end real estate private equity funds — a value-add strategy targeting net IRRs reported in the ~11%–14% range, not startup equity.
• Focuses on "creating value in vibrant neighborhoods," acquiring distinctive retail and mixed-use properties in dynamic, demographically stable and growing population centers.
• Emphasizes vertically integrated capabilities — in-house asset management, development, leasing, investments, and valuation — to reposition and enhance neighborhood retail districts.
• Targets grocery-anchored and necessity/neighborhood retail as a core, recession-resilient property type, alongside creative-office and residential mixed-use components.
• Personal philosophy grounded in alignment and comprehension: *"I don't invest in things that I don't understand or cannot explain."* Brown stresses investing alongside experienced partners, backing the people leading a venture, and aligning investor and management interests.
• Prioritizes hiring for potential over experience and building a strong, "fun" culture with a pristine reputation as core objectives — a talent-first approach carried over from his EDENS years.