Director, Development Finance

Director, Development Finance – Full Time/Exempt

The Arizona Cardinals Football Club is seeking a Director, Development Finance to lead financial analysis, development underwriting, and capital structuring for the Rawhide Project, a multi-phase, master-planned mixed-use development encompassing land development and horizontal infrastructure, retail, office, multifamily, hospitality, and structured parking.

This is a high-visibility, high-trust role supporting and working directly with the fast-moving, newly formed organization of Rawhide Development Company, created to develop a 217 acre mixed use development in the north Phoenix area. The Director will serve as the analytical lead for the Rawhide Project, working closely with the CFO of the Cardinals and the CEO of Rawhide Development Company on the master pro forma, the development underwriting, the capital stack, and the materials that carry the project to ownership, lenders, joint venture partners, and public agencies.

This is a highly hands-on individual contributor role. The successful candidate will be comfortable operating with independence and functioning as the dedicated development finance resource for Rawhide, personally building and maintaining the analyses and models that support key decisions rather than relying on a team of analysts. The role will collaborate extensively across Enterprise Finance, Accounting, Legal, Project Management and other internal and external partners.

This role requires the highest level of confidentiality and discretion. The Director, Development Finance will regularly be exposed to sensitive financial, transactional, and strategic information — including land transactions, partner and lender economics, ownership discussions, and organizational planning — and must handle all such information with absolute discretion, both inside and outside the organization.

Primary

Job Duties:

• Pro Forma Modeling & Development Underwriting
  • Build and own the master development pro forma, a fully integrated, multi-phase model consolidating horizontal land development with vertical product across retail, office, multifamily, hospitality, and structured parking, with parcel- and project-level roll-ups
  • Underwrite individual components: rents, absorption, hard and soft costs, escalation, lease-up, operating expenses, reserves, exit cap rates, and residual value
  • Produce land residual analyses and test alternative land-use programs, densities, and phasing sequences
  • Calculate and stress project and partner level returns (IRR, equity multiple, yield-on-cost, development spread) through sensitivity and downside analysis, and maintain rigorous model governance and documentation
• Market Research & Feasibility
  • Own market research across the Phoenix/Scottsdale MSA - comparables, absorption, vacancy, pipeline, tenant demand, and demographics, and translate it into underwriting assumptions defensible to internal and external stakeholders
  • Conduct highest-and-best-use and product-positioning analysis by parcel, and support tenant-mix strategy for the retail component
  • Manage and analyze third-party consultants (market studies, appraisals, feasibility and fiscal impact analyses) rather than accept deliverables that cannot be reproduced internally
• Joint Venture Structuring & Waterfall Modeling
  • Model joint venture equity waterfalls, including preferred returns, hurdles, promote tiers, catch-ups, clawbacks, and capital-account tracking
  • Read and translate LLC and JV operating agreements into working models, flagging where drafted economics diverge from intent under downside scenarios
  • Support partner and investor negotiations with quantitative back-up, and maintain partner-level cash flow reporting, capital calls, and distributions
• Capital Markets, Financing & Public Finance
  • Model the capital stacks as required, construction debt, mezzanine, preferred and common equity, bridge and permanent financing, and refinance/recapitalization options
  • Analyze and compare alternative financing mechanisms (bonds, credit tenant lease, etc.) as required
  • Prepare lender and equity packages, manage diligence, and reconcile third-party reports against the underwriting
  • Model potential…