Dave Cocagne is President and CEO of Vermilion Development and is the firm’s principal. During his career, he has been involved in the acquisition and development of office, retail, assisted living, student housing and medical office facilities across the United States. Many of these have played a catalytic role in neighborhood revitalization.

He has particular expertise in crafting complex, multi-faceted projects with layered capital stacks. Under his leadership, his firm and its affiliates have developed and acquired over $400 million of real estate assets. In recognition of his work, Mr. Cocagne was named the 2012 Young Visionary by the Urban Land Institute’s Chicago chapter, and Crain’s Chicago named him to its “40 under 40” list for 2013.

Mr. Cocagne has served on a variety of not-for-profit boards, including the University of Illinois Alumni Association Board of Directors; the Board of Directors of the Chicago Area Council, Boy Scouts of America; the University of Illinois Board of Trustees; and the Merit Board of the State University Civil Service System.

Mr. Cocagne received a Bachelor of Arts in finance from the University of Illinois. He earned a Masters of Business Administration from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating as a Palmer Scholar. He was awarded the Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 2004. He is an alumnus of the Advanced Management Development Program at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and he is an adjunct lecturer of real estate at the Kellogg School of Management. He is a member of the Urban Land Institute, the CFA Institute, the Chicago Club, the Economic Club of Chicago, and the University of Illinois Alumni Association.