About Us
Sayo Kamara is Founder and Managing Principal of Rockacre Capital and serves on the National Board of Directors of Girls Inc., a national nonprofit focused on empowering girls and young women.
Prior to founding Rockacre, Kamara built a decade of institutional commercial real estate experience at Colliers, Cushman & Wakefield, and The Durst Organization, where he leads commercial leasing for One World Trade Center. His practice has spanned tenant and institutional landlord representation across some of the most complex assets in the New York market, with direct responsibility for lease-up execution, absorption underwriting, and long-term tenant credit analysis — experience that forms the underwriting foundation of Rockacre's investment approach.
Kamara served as Chairman of the Young Men's/Women's Real Estate Association (YM/WREA), a 78-year-old industry organization, becoming the first Black chairman in its history. In that role, he built relationships across the senior leadership of the institutional real estate industry, including principal-level relationships at global private equity, REIT, and investment management platforms that today underpin Rockacre's operator and capital networks.
He grew up in a nondenominational household where his father led in-house fellowship meetings, a background that directly informs Rockacre's approach to faith institution partnerships and the trust required to operate effectively in communities that institutional capital has historically underserved.
Kamara has been recognized by Business Insider as a Rising Star in Commercial Real Estate (2022), by Crain's New York Business as a Notable Leader in Real Estate (2022), and as a Rising Star in Commercial Real Estate (2019).
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Rockacre Capital was founded on the belief that institutional capital discipline and community stewardship are not only compatible. They are essential to building durable housing and neighborhood infrastructure at scale.
Too often, community-anchored real estate is treated as a binary: maximize financial returns through displacement, or preserve mission at the cost of financial viability. That is a false choice.
Rockacre operates as a capital allocation platform targeting community-anchored institutional real estate - faith-based landowners, workforce housing corridors, and mission-driven operators in markets where the barriers to entry are relational, not just financial. We provide predevelopment capital, co-GP partnership, and LP equity placement to advance transactions from concept through stabilization.
Our competitive position is not a DEI narrative. It is access, underwriting discipline, and a structured approach to a segment of the market that is chronically undercapitalized precisely because most institutional capital cannot navigate it.
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Long-Term Orientation
We measure success in decades, not quarters. Our structures prioritize durability of use and stakeholder alignment over short-term returns.Institutional Rigor
We bring lease-up underwriting, development management oversight, and capital structuring to assets that have historically been undercapitalized, translating institutional discipline into transactions where that rigor has rarely been applied.Mission Alignment
We are the partner that mission-driven institutions can trust to execute with both financial discipline and respect for their long-term community role.Founder-Led
Direct principal involvement in every transaction ensures accountability, transparency, and alignment from initial concept through long-term asset management. -
From smaller organizations to seasoned institutions, we partner with people who care about doing things right, and doing them well.
