The Business Journal’s CFO Lifetime Achievement Award honoree Elizabeth Pagliarini might be better awarded the “most interesting CFO Award,” according to Rutan & Tucker LLP Partner Lindsay Hulley, who introduced the executive during the Jan. 30 awards ceremony (see stories on other winners, pages 1, 4, 6, and 8).
Anyone who looks at Pagliarini’s eclectic résumé would concur.
Her nearly three-decade career started with a CEO gig in her mid-20s and led to other entrepreneurial and creative ventures—including a two-year stint as a professional poker player.
But it’s her recent work at Summit Healthcare REIT, a Lake Forest-based industrial-turned-senior housing investment firm, that’s been the shining highlight of her career.
The Chicago native joined the healthcare property investor in 2014, just as the company was transitioning out of the industrial real estate sector, which had been hammered during the previous recession, and helped “turn the ship around.”
“Of all of my previous ventures, I can say I am most proud of this company, the team, and what we have been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time,” Pagliarini told the Business Journal.
Stocks, Clothing
Pagliarini’s first C-suite position came after she moved to Los Angeles from New York in the 1990s, after executives from Chase Bank sought her out to head a new upstart division, Stocks4Less, a discount online brokerage firm based in Beverly Hills.
It was a success.
The company was profitable within eight months, and a venture capital firm soon bought it.
As then became customary for Pagliarini, she moved on to the next challenge, which involved starting and selling several companies, including a broker-dealer and clothing company.
The opportunity to join Summit came when the company’s new CEO, Kent Eikanas, approached her with the gig, describing it in a way that might have deterred some.
“It was as if the company was starting over from scratch, and he knew I liked a challenge,” Pagliarini said. “I love coming in at a time when there’s a long runway.”
Challenge Accepted
A challenge indeed—the real estate investment trust essentially had no employees, and was relying on an advisory firm for staff support, while also struggling to shed its industrial assets, and with it, its previous identity.
“The shareholders had lost a lot of value, and weren’t receiving distributions,” Pagliarini said.
The transition began in 2012, when it started to shift its focus and hired Eikanas, a former vice president of senior housing for a private equity group.
The company changed its name in 2013 from Cornerstone Core Properties to Summit Healthcare REIT, and Pagliarini came on board the following year.
It acquired nine senior housing properties the next year, and by 2017, the company had closed on a 17-property industrial portfolio, while also raising $130 million.
In addition to boosting revenue, Pagliarini added a new title to her business card—she picked up a second C-suite position last year when she became chief operations officer, in addition to chief financial officer and treasurer.
The company has 57 properties in its portfolio, up from just 10 when Pagliarini started. They’re valued at close to $500 million.
The shareholders are happy, too; Summit resumed distributions last year, delivering $1.5 million.
Next Up
The company is lean and mean with only 10 employees, but has big goals, planning to remain aggressive on the acquisition front and double its portfolio within the next few years.
As for Pagliarini, who serves on the board of Irvine’s First Foundation Inc. (Nasdaq: FFWM), she has no desire to move on to the next challenge yet.
“I want to see this through,” she said.
