Jake Geleerd

Jake is the President, CEO and Co-Founder of Tortoise Properties, a privately held residential & commercial real estate developer. He is also a Co-Founder and Owner at Tortoise Realty Group. Jake continues to build upon his 30-plus year legacy and emerging manager in residential and commercial real estate as an owner, operator and developer.

He serves as a Board Member and on the Chairman’s Council of the Palm Beach Country Business Development Board (BDB), Chief Executives Organization (CEO.org) and Boulder Investment Group. He is an officer on the Board of Young Presidents Organization (YPO) in Chicago, Denver and Palm Beach and a Board Member and Officer of the YPO Golf Network. He is an advisory board member of Buffalo Construction based in Louisville, KT and was an advisor of Avail.co, the best-in-class property management and leasing software for DIY landlords and tenants that was acquired in December 2020 by Realtor.com.

Jake served as CEO of Rogers Centre/SkyDome in Toronto, the home of MLB Blue Jays and the second home to the NFL Buffalo Bills. Jake was President of Ocean Tomo, a global IP merchant banc and a director at Clark Hill.

A University of Illinois Gies School of Business graduate, Geleerd began his career in the real investment industry in the 1990s at Sam Zell’s Equity Group, a private equity firm whose founder, the late Sam Zell, was a pioneer in real estate investment trusts. While there Geleerd underwrote and acquired significant assets and portfolios and then took them public as EOP, ELP and EQR. As a Zell disciple, Jake has embraced and mastered many of Zell’s best practices including the strategic and analytical pursuit of investing in the right assets in the right markets at the right times.

An avid golfer, Jake was a golf pro at Club Med golf pro and rose to Chairman of the “Best Ball Club” that presents golf events in Chicago, Phoenix, Palm Beach and Detroit. Jake has many wins including his the YPO Q Cup win at Querencia, Cabo and the Walter Cup Championship finish at Cherry Hill.

He is a founder and organizer of the Guy Geleerd Memorial Golf Invitational, created in memory of his dad, that over its 26 years and going of competition raised more than $500,000 toward lung cancer research at the University of Chicago and the V-Foundation for Cancer Research.