Jeanne Schroer
President/CEO, The Catalytic Fund
Jeanne Schroer is the President/CEO of the Catalytic Development Funding Corp. of Northern Kentucky, a not-for-profit company that provides capital and development services to real estate developers and local governments undertaking projects in Northern Kentucky’s urban neighborhoods. The Catalytic Fund has a $16,000,000 real estate investment fund its uses to provide equity investments, secondary/mezzanine, bridge loans and other creative financing structures to assist quality residential and mixed-use projects. The company also has a full-time staff to provide real estate development services such as transaction structuring, property analysis, land assemblage, and financial feasibility analysis. The Catalytic Fund was certified by the US Department of Treasury as a CDFI in 2015.
Schroer has 35+ years of experience as a real estate professional. She began her real estate career as a Financial Analyst with Urban Investment and Development Company in Chicago, developer of large urban mixed-use projects such as Water Tower Place in Chicago and Copley Place in Boston. In 1984, she joined Corporex Companies and held positions of Financial Analyst, Manager – Capital Acquisition, Director – Mortgage & Equity Group, and Senior Vice President and Member of Corporex’s Executive Management Board. Her primary responsibilities at Corporex included arranging debt and equity financing transactions for Corporex’s development projects, arranging permanent loans and asset sales, managing lender and investor relationships, and completing the annual valuation of real estate assets and the consolidated corporate Business Plan. Schroer also held the position of Vice President of Finance at Tipton Associates between 1989 and 1991. Prior to joining the Catalytic Fund, Schroer was the Interim Director of the University of Cincinnati Real Estate Center and Field Service Professor of Real Estate.
Schroer graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Cincinnati with a Bachelor of Urban Planning and a Certificate in Economics. She also received a Master of Business Administration in Finance and Real Estate from Indiana University. Schroer holds the professional designation Counselor of Real Estate (CRE), a credential awarded only to those individuals who are invited by their peers into the membership of The Counselors of Real Estate. The credential signifies professional achievement in the real estate counseling profession and demonstrates peer recognition of outstanding intelligence, integrity, and judgment in real estate.
In addition to her professional work, Schroer has been active in numerous community planning efforts and real estate professional organizations. She was Co-Chairman of the Urban Centers Task Force for Quest – Northern Kentucky in 2020 and a member of the Riverfront Advisors Commission, which created the original plan for “The Banks”. She is a member of the Board of Advisors for Real Estate (BEARE) for UC’s Real Estate Center and served as Chairman of UC’s Real Estate Executive Advisory Committee (REEAC). She was President of the Cincinnati Chapter of NAIOP and is currently a member of the Executive Committee of Urban Land Institute. Schroer was a member of the Executive Board and Regional Stewardship Council of Vision 2015 and is now a member of Skyward’s (Vision 2015’s successor organization) Allies for economic Growth. Schroer also serves on the Executive Board of the Covington Business Council, the Board of Directors of the Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing, the PNC Bank Community Development Advisory Board, and the Board of Governors of the Metropolitan Club.
In 2011, Schroer was the recipient of the University of Cincinnati Real Estate Center Distinguished Real Estate Professional Award and was named by the Cincinnati Enquirer as one of the “Twenty Businesswomen to Watch in 2012”. She also received the 2012 Covington Business Council “Founder’s Award”, the 2012 Center for Great Neighborhoods “Great Neighbor Award”, was one of McAuley High School’s 2012 “Women Who Inspire”, one of the 2014 “Outstanding Women of Northern Kentucky”, and the Lane Report’s “Top Ten Businesswomen in Kentucky”. In 2015, Schroer was named as one of the Cincinnati Business Courier’s “Ten People to Know in Commercial Real Estate”. Schroer also received the 2017 Trailblazer Award from the Boy Scouts of America, 2017 Legacy Impact Award, and the 2018 Friends of Covington Award. In 2019, she received the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce William T. Robinson III Economic Development Award recognizing significant advancement of economic development in the Northern Kentucky region.