Aaron Appel is a Senior Managing Director, Capital Markets, and Co-Head of Institutional Advisory at Walker & Dunlop, based in New York. In his role, he is responsible for leading efforts to deliver comprehensive debt and equity financing solutions across all commercial real estate asset classes nationwide. Mr. Appel has over a decade of capital markets and debt and equity placement experience.

Prior to Walker & Dunlop, Mr. Appel was Co-Founder of AKS Capital Partners, which was acquired by Walker & Dunlop in January 2020. Mr. Appel helped the firm become one of the highest producing capital markets advisory firms in the country, responsible for originations valued in excess of $100 billion of debt and equity financing. Before establishing AKS Capital Partners, Mr. Appel served as Vice Chairman and head of JLL’s Debt and Equity Capital Markets practice based in New York City. During his time at JLL, Mr. Appel’s team was annually named the highest producing debt and equity advisors at the firm, facilitating over $50 billion of debt and equity placement. Additionally, Mr. Appel was named the firm’s MVP in both 2015 and 2017 and has been honored each year since 2015 by the Commercial Observer as one of their top 50 Most Powerful People in Commercial Real Estate Finance. In his previous roles, Mr. Appel was a managing director of Meridian Capital Group and a first vice president at CBRE.

Mr. Appel earned his bachelor’s degree in finance from the Zicklin School of Business at the City University of New York - Baruch College.