REAL ASSETS
Cliffwater Appoints Ryan Madani to Cascade Real Assets Fund Team
The hire follows June's appointment of Sean Brenan as Head of Real Estate, as the interval fund manager continues to build out its real assets platform.
Cliffwater has announced that Ryan Madani has joined as Managing Director, strengthening the firm's real assets platform as it continues to expand its investment capabilities. Madani joins from Partners Group, where he spent nearly a decade investing across private real estate, responsible for sourcing, underwriting, structuring and managing investments across secondaries, co-investments, joint ventures, recapitalisations and primary fund investments. During his tenure at Partners Group he played a key role in transactions representing more than $2 billion of equity investments and over $6 billion of total capitalisation.
Building out the Cascade Real Assets Fund team
Blake Nesbitt, Co-Head of Asset Management and Chief Investment Officer at Cliffwater, said: "Ryan is a talented investor with deep experience across private real estate and an impressive track record sourcing and evaluating investment opportunities in real assets. His appointment reflects our continued commitment to building a best-in-class platform that delivers differentiated solutions for investors seeking private real assets exposure." Sean Brenan, Head of Real Estate and Portfolio Manager of the Cascade Real Assets Fund, said Madani's "investment and portfolio construction expertise will be an asset to our team, further enhancing the depth of our investment platform as investor demand for institutional-quality real assets solutions continues to grow."
Part of a wider platform expansion
Cliffwater appointed Brenan as Head of Real Estate and Portfolio Manager of the Cascade Real Assets Fund in June, underscoring continued investment in a real assets platform with more than two decades of experience. Founded in 2004, Cliffwater has deployed $136 billion in private markets on behalf of clients, including $19 billion in real assets, as of 31 March 2026, and its private markets interval fund platform had $44.1 billion in net assets as of 30 June 2026, which the firm describes as the largest in the market.