PEOPLE MOVES
Cliffwater Appoints Sam Walsh to Cascade Real Assets Fund Team
The hire from Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC adds senior real estate investment experience to the largest private markets interval fund platform serving the wealth channel.
Cliffwater, a private markets interval fund manager, has appointed Sam Walsh as Managing Director on the Cascade Real Assets Fund team. Walsh joins from GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, where he most recently served as Senior Vice President, Investments, Americas Real Estate, holding senior investment responsibilities across real estate equity and credit and serving as Head of Multifamily and Retail in North America. The appointment follows the recent additions of Ryan Madani as Managing Director and Sean Brenan as Head of Real Estate and Portfolio Manager, continuing the expansion of Cliffwater's dedicated real assets team.
Institutional experience joining the wealth channel
Blake Nesbitt, Co-Head of Asset Management and Chief Investment Officer at Cliffwater, said: "As a leader at one of the most significant institutional investors in the world, Sam brings substantial real estate investing experience and a strong track record allocating capital across property types and sectors. His experience investing at scale and developing and structuring partnerships with real estate GPs of various types will be very valuable and accretive as we scale the Cascade Real Assets Fund."
The Cascade Real Assets Fund team sits within Cliffwater's broader real assets platform, which the firm says brings more than two decades of experience, a tenured research team, and institutional relationships across private real estate, infrastructure and other real assets.
Why it matters for private wealth
Cliffwater, founded in 2004, describes itself as one of the largest providers of alternative investment solutions for the wealth management channel. It has deployed $136 billion in private markets on behalf of clients, including $19 billion in real assets, as of 31 March 2026, and says its private markets interval fund platform is now the largest in the market, with $44.6 billion in net assets as of 31 July 2026. The hire of an institutional real estate investor from a sovereign wealth fund into a fund structure aimed at wealth management clients is a further sign of institutional-grade talent moving into products built for private wealth distribution.