Jeff Small, Jr.

Jeff is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of MDH Partners. His primary responsibilities include leading the strategic direction of the Company and its portfolio, overseeing the pursuit and underwriting of its new acquisitions and developments, and managing the relationships with its equity investors.

Under Jeff’s guidance, MDH Partners has grown from its initial one-off acquisitions in joint ventures with Blackstone and Wells Fargo in 2005 to its successful 2014 venture with Bain Capital, through which it amassed a 14 million square foot portfolio in 15 cities and then sold for $952 million to Blackstone in 2018, to the launch of its first $350 million fund in 2019, quickly hitting its cap from its institutional investors comprised of large university endowments and foundations.  Every realized investment made by MDH Partners since its 2005 founding has returned in excess of a 30% IRR to its investors.

In 2010-11, Jeff advised the Blackstone Group in the acquisition of 45 million SF of properties in 30 markets across the country with a value of more than $2 billion in order to form IndCor, the country’s second largest industrial real estate company. He was appointed by Blackstone to the board of IndCor and continued to counsel the company as it grew to $8 billion in assets before its 2015 sale to GLP.

Prior to founding MDH, Jeff served as the President and CEO of M.D. Hodges Enterprises from 1997-2005. This Atlanta-based development company had a portfolio of 140 office and industrial buildings, totaling over 13 million SF, 1,600 acres of commercial and industrial land, and 4,000 acres of timber land. Jeff orchestrated the sale of Hodges to Blackstone in 1999 and then guided the transformation of the company from a family business that had been founded by his grandfather into an institutional one by reorganizing its corporate structure and implementing new management practices. In 2005, he led the sale of the company again to ING Clarion, generating an internal rate of return for Blackstone and its investors of over 26%. The company achieved this exceptional return through new development, acquisitions, land deployment, disposition of non-core or over-valued assets, and bringing best practices to the organization.

Prior to joining Hodges in 1993, Jeff practiced corporate law at the Atlanta law firm King & Spalding. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School and a summa cum laude graduate of Yale University. He also holds a Masters in Religious Studies from Oxford University in England. Jeff is a published author of two bestselling and award-winning novels and has taught as an adjunct professor at Emory University. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of The Westminster Schools in Atlanta and previously served on the Boards of General Theological Seminary in New York and Trinity School in Atlanta. He lives in Atlanta with his wife and daughter.