William Palmer

William Palmer is an internationally recognized entrepreneur, operating executive, real estate investor and advisor. In 1986, Palmer moved from California to London to become a pioneering developer of European self-storage. In Europe, Palmer was the founder and CEO of Access Storage, still one of Europe’s largest self-storage companies.In 1998, Palmer sold the company to a $1.5 billion fund sponsored by US based Security Capital. Palmer remained as CEO for two additional years. At his departure, the company had 64 locations in 3 countries and an estimated market capitalization of $350 million. With 3.5 million square feet of storage space, Access was the largest storage operation in Europe. Palmer’s European storage experience includes founding, growing, financing, acquiring, operating and selling storage businesses.In addition to his storage background, Palmer has many years of entrepreneurial real estate experience. After graduating from Harvard Business School, Palmer returned to Los Angeles and was active in real estate; first with CB Richard Ellis, then Wells Fargo Realty Finance and next as a developer and investor. Palmer entered into a series of real estate joint ventures owning, operating and managing real estate businesses with well-known and successful property developers in the United States. Partners included: Mel Simon of Simon Properties, Marshall Bennett of Bennett Enterprises, Chicago and theJanss family, developers of Thousand Oaks, CA and creators of Sun Valley, Idaho.In 2002, Palmer relocated from London to New York City. For the past 15 years, Palmer has been an active advisor, board member and investor in real estate, including storage.In addition to real estate, other investments have included transportation, healthcare, technology and early learning. In real estate, Palmer has acted as an advisor to traditional self-storage operators as well as new, innovative storage models including collectible automobile storage, and the new, disruptive, valet storage business. Palmer is also an active board member/investor in a public Canadian construction equipment rental business. With a long-standing commitment to supporting the arts, Palmer is a Charter Founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (MOCA) and a trustee of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York where he served on its real estate operating committee. He continues as an active supporter of the arts in both the USA and Europe. Palmer has an undergraduate degree from Yale University in Applied Mathematics where he was a Yale National Scholar and an Alcoa Foundation Scholar. He received an MBA from Harvard Business School and currently lives in New York City with his wife and two children.