Alumni Spotlight: César Kupfer Jarmain ’01

"UCC provided me with a solid foundation, and it wasn’t just academics. It’s the well-roundedness I received,” Kupfer Jarmain says. “It was hard building my network, and it would have been great to have a mentor show me the path, and say, ‘This is what I’ve achieved, and you can do the same thing.’ Common Ties helps make that happen.”   

In 2009, he launched Kupfer Capital, which assists developers in securing equity and debt for condos, purpose-built rentals, and commercial and industrial real estate projects. His other company, Insignia Developments, which opened last year with partners Paul Clarkson and Atif Aqeel, provides development and design services, but also looks to initiate its own real estate projects.  

“Those gentlemen have been in the game for 15 years,” he says. “They’ve done architectural design and handled the logistics of builds for third parties, from managing all the trades to the construction materials, just as I’ve been finding financing for third parties. I got us all in a room and said, ‘Listen, we’ve done it for clients — why don’t we do it for ourselves?’”

After graduating from UCC, where he was in Scadding’s House, Kupfer Jarmain studied political science, as well as law and society, at York University. It was then that he came to fully appreciate his five years at the College.

“When I went to university, I was prepared,” he says. “All of a sudden I was flying. I had to write papers, which we had learned at UCC doing our [IB Diploma Programme] extended essays.”  

He then got jobs in the banking sector at RBC and then TD, but they couldn’t satisfy his growing ambition to segue into real estate investing, so he set out on his own. 

He’s always considered himself someone who thinks outside the box, and brought that approach to his work with the College’s Young Alumni Network (YAN), which looked to drive grads’ engagement with UCC and the wider community. YAN held reunion events for which he pushed for sponsorship from alumni and companies in their network. He then joined Common Ties and helped create the Real Estate Group segment, which sees companies in the industry hosting events and lunch-and-learns at their offices.

It’s Kupfer Jarmain’s aim to provide a warm and welcoming space for younger grads to learn and grow. 
    

“I recently updated my Common Ties profile, and soon afterwards I received emails from three grads, a couple of whom recently finished university. I asked, ‘How can I help?’ Real estate is a broad topic with different asset classes requiring different skill sets. My message is, if you need guidance, I’m here.”