Ari M. Shalam

Lecturer

Contact Information

Primary Email:
ashalam@wharton.upenn.edu
Office Phone:
(215) 898-9687

office Address:
Dinan Hall, 4th Floor
3733 Spruce Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6301

Overview

Ari M. Shalam is a lecturer in Real Estate Entrepreneurship at Wharton, winning teaching excellence awards every year in that role. He is also the founder and current Managing Partner of RWN Real Estate Partners LLC, a NYC based real estate private equity platform. RWN targets direct and controlled, middle market joint venture investment opportunities across most property types. RWN has transacted in New York City, Texas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Miami and Puerto Rico.

From 2009 to 2011, Ari was the President of Enterprise Asset Management, Inc. a real estate centric multi-family office and from 2003 to 2009, he was a Senior Partner and Director of Acquisitions of Taconic Investment Partners, a fully integrated real estate investment and development company focused on New York City. Previously, he was the Director of Acquisitions for the Kaufman Organization. Throughout his real estate career, Ari has led nearly $2.5 billion in real estate investments.

Ari is the chairman of the board of the directors of Voxx International Corporation (NASDAQ: VOXX), and a former advisory board member of the Penn Institute of Urban Research and the board of the Good+ Foundation, as well as a former trustee of the Trinity School in New York City.

Ari received his BS in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania cum laude and his MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Teaching

REAL 3960/8910 – Real Estate Entrepreneurship

This half-semester course focuses on entrepreneurial aspects of the real estate investment business. The course structure is designed to track the life cycle of real estate investing, with different units focusing on discrete stages of the deal process from sourcing and capital raising to asset management and property disposition. At each juncture, granular attention is be paid to real-life deal making skills, all from the perspective of an entrepreneur operating with limited resources in different economic environments. As part of the class, you will analyze detailed steps in the deal process, mathematical concepts, financial models, and investment documentation that, once assembled, will arm you with a “deal tool kit” that you can retain and reference as you engage in real estate transactions throughout your career. At the end of the course, time will be allocated to discuss the trajectory of real estate entrepreneurship and how it might correspond to your career in the business as you get started.

Interested students are cautioned that the class is not a survey course. The class delves deeply into the details of the real estate deal making process with cases and assignments tasking students to learn important yet challenging mathematical and legal concepts key to the business.

Knowledge at Wharton

Markets Brace for Tariffs and Look to AI for Relief

Jeremy Siegel examines how investors are responding to geopolitical uncertainty, looming tariffs, and the promise of AI-driven productivity.…Read More

Knowledge @ Wharton - 6/27/2025

The New Science of Pitching and Hitting With Travis Sawchik

A baseball analyst and author explores how data is transforming player training.…Read More

Knowledge @ Wharton - 6/25/2025

How AI Is Reshaping Customer Experience and Expectations

Wharton professor of operations, information and decisions explores how artificial intelligence is transforming customer service operations.…Read More