Blackstone's Wesley LePatner, a mentor to women and real estate investing leader, killed in NYC office shooting Bradley Saacks,Michelle Abrego July 29, 2025 at 8:36 PM Wesley LePatnerBI composite A shooting at 345 Park Avenue on Monday evening left four victims dead.
- - Blackstone's Wesley LePatner, a mentor to women and real estate investing leader, killed in NYC office shooting
Bradley Saacks,Michelle Abrego July 29, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Wesley LePatnerBI composite -
A shooting at 345 Park Avenue on Monday evening left four victims dead.
Blackstone said the real estate executive Wesley LePatner was among those killed in the NYC shooting.
She was a top real estate executive there and featured on a BI power player list in 2022.
Wesley LePatner, a star executive in Blackstone's real estate business, was among those killed on Monday by a gunman who entered the company's Park Avenue offices.
LePatner, 43 years old, was the $1.2 trillion firm's global head of Core+ real estate and CEO of Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, the company's juggernaut real estate fund for individual investors. Her death has left staff at the New York-based asset manager "heartbroken," the private equity giant said in a statement Tuesday morning.
LePatner is one of four victims, including a New York Police Department officer, who lost their lives to the gunman, who has been identified by the police as 27-year-old Shane Tamura. The gunman died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound on the 33rd floor of 345 Park Avenue, a skyscraper home to major financial institutions and the NFL's headquarters.
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"Words cannot express the devastation we feel. Wesley was a beloved member of the Blackstone family and will be sorely missed. She was brilliant, passionate, warm, generous, and deeply respected within our firm and beyond. She embodied the best of Blackstone," the statement continued.
Real estate power player
LePatner attended the elite NYC private school Horace Mann and Yale University. She joined Goldman Sachs following her graduation, where she worked for over a decade. She joined Blackstone in 2014 when its core assets portfolio, which invests in commercial properties like warehouses, office buildings, rental housing, and hotels, was a nascent investment category. She helped launch BREIT in 2017, which has become a major piece of the private equity firm's push to attract funds from wealthy individuals.Business Insider profiled LePatner in 2022 as a power player in Blackstone's real estate team. Back then, she said that her unit was, "for all intents and purposes, a startup."
"I faced all the challenges one could imagine when building a multibillion-dollar business — from hiring to ensuring standards remain high, moving quickly to keep up with growth, and staying ahead of market swings and growing pains," she said.
Blackstone President Jon Gray referenced her "tremendous talent" when it was announced she would take leadership of the investment vehicle from former BREIT CEO Frank Cohen, who stepped down in January.
Champion for women in finance
LePatner was also involved in developing mentorship opportunities for women at Blackstone. She served as the chair for its affinity group, the Blackstone Women's Initiative. In a video interview on the firm's website, when asked if she feels there are strong opportunities for women to lead in the industry, she said, "I am a big believer of, 'if you can see it, you can be it,'" referencing her high-profile colleagues Kathleen McCarthy, global co-head of real estate, and Joan Solotar, the firm's global head of private wealth solutions.
LePatner was a trustee of New York's Met Museum and served on the boards for The Abraham Joshua Heschel School and the UJA-Federation of New York. The latter honored her at its Wall Street dinner in 2023. Blackstone's Gray presented her with the Alan C. Greenberg Young Leadership Award. He spoke about her ascent in finance and her support of women on Wall Street, saying "she pays it forward from generation to generation."
"Wesley was extraordinary in every way — personally, professionally, and philanthropically," the non-profit said in a statement. "An exceptional leader in the financial world, she brought thoughtfulness, vision, and compassion to everything she did."
She led a solidarity mission with UJA to Israel following the October 7 attack.
In her acceptance remarks, she talked about the organization's "power to create a sense of community and belonging, and that ability to create a sense of community and belonging matters now more than ever."LePartner is survived by her husband, Evan, and their two children.
"We cannot properly express the grief we feel upon the sudden and tragic loss of Wesley, the LePatner family said in a statement. "She was the most loving wife, mother, daughter, sister, and relative, who enriched our lives in every way imaginable.
"To so many others, she was a beloved, fiercely loyal and caring friend, and a driven and extraordinarily talented professional and colleague."
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