11North appoints Ekta Patel as COO to strengthen operations today

11North Partners has tapped Ekta Patel as Chief Operating Officer, a hire designed to strengthen the firm’s operational backbone as it expands its grocery‑anchored and necessity‑based retail strategy. The appointment — effective February 3 — places Ms. Patel in the New York office reporting directly to founder and managing partner Brian Harper.

Her arrival follows 11North Partners’s recent core‑plus capital raise of $1.6 billion alongside Bain Capital, a transaction that underlined the firm’s push to build an institutional‑grade operating platform. In the COO role Ms. Patel will run firmwide operations, coordinate asset and platform teams, and lead initiatives to standardise governance, investor reporting and systems integration.

Ms. Patel joins from Bain Capital Real Estate, where she helped shape the JV’s early investment strategy and initial transactions. Her CV also includes senior operating and portfolio roles at AEW and Brookfield, where she led cross‑functional workstreams spanning asset management, finance and capital markets — experience 11North says will be central to scaling its platform.

The move is emblematic of a broader trend in private real estate: allocators are increasingly favouring managers that combine defensive product types, such as grocery‑anchored open‑air retail, with repeatable operating infrastructure. Grocery‑anchored centres have historically delivered steady cash flows and lower turnover than discretionary‑retail, often reporting occupancy well above market averages and resilient footfall against ecommerce pressures.

For 11North, bolstering operations is a logical next step after attracting long‑term institutional capital. A dedicated COO can compress the time between capital deployment and asset stabilisation by improving portfolio governance, streamlining reporting to LPs and enhancing playbooks for leasing and property operations — all material to preserving core‑plus return profiles.

Brian Harper described the hire as a strategic fit with the firm’s multi‑platform ambitions, citing Ms. Patel’s “disciplined execution and collaborative leadership” as qualities that will support both current assets and future growth. Ms. Patel said she was drawn to 11North’s disciplined, partnership‑oriented approach and its focus on long‑term value creation across necessity‑based retail formats.

Looking ahead, the appointment signals 11North’s intent to professionalise operations as it deploys the $1.6 billion pool. For investors and competitors, the development underscores how middle‑market managers are investing in people and systems to capture scale efficiencies — a differentiator as capital competes for stabilised, income‑oriented retail assets.