Christopher Donald is a managing director with XYZ Storage, formerly known as All Canadian Self-Storage, based in Toronto, Canada, and was a co-founder of the firm in 1997. His immediate prior employer was the Deutsche Bank Group, covering approximately 14 years in roles such as head of Prime Finance for Asia-ex, head of Prime Finance for Japan, Global and European COO roles for securities lending, and prime brokerage/synthetics in Hong Kong, New York, London, and Tokyo. He has also worked as a consultant in the finance/hospitality sector with Cubalink Canada in Havana & Lehman Brothers in London.
Chris has also been a financial controller for a specialty pharmaceutical company, partner in a merchant bank/consulting outfit and served in the Canadian Forces for a total of 10 years. He is a CFA charterholder from the CFA Institute, has an MBA from the University of Western Ontario and a BA in history from the University of Toronto. Chris serves as a board member for Espresso Capital, a venture debt lending firm.
Christopher Donald
We spoke with Christopher after he took Real Estate Negotiation Essentials: Dealmaking Techniques & Simulation with us in April 2025.
Why did you choose to sign up for this program, and how was your experience?
I decided to take the negotiation course as a ‘sharpening tool’ and to learn how more formal institutions would approach the subject.
I found the course to be practical, relevant, and loaded with case studies that were relevant and material.
We designed the program to be highly interactive, with each negotiation taking place in a 2–3-person group. What was the group work like?
The interactions made it more ‘real’ in the sense that one had to immediately employ the tactics … it was fun and illustrative.
Fernando Levy Hara is famous for having many memorable memorable stories, some of which he shared with us in advance of the program. Do you have a memorable real estate negotiation story you can share publicly?
I dont know that I have a particular story that is unique but I do have a series of observations where sometimes momentum amongst team or agency members can almost become a self-fulfilling prophecy and it often falls to me to bring the group back to the actutal economics and hurdle rates thus deflating the deal inertia.
Knowing what you now know, would you now have done anything differently?
Articulate my ‘needs’ more quickly from the start / hurdle rate for the deal.