Jessica Bailey and Alexandra Cooley realized in the mid-2010s that a state-backed loan program for energy efficiency projects could go nationwide after seeing insatiable interest from borrowers and institutional investors.
Since then, the two women have started and sold a business — Green Works Lending, which has since been rebranded as Nuveen Green Capital — and originated more than $3 billion in sustainable commercial real estate financing.
Bailey and Cooley, who both earned master’s degrees at Yale, met in 2012 while originating loans for developers and landlords through a Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) loan program they set up at the Hartford-based Connecticut Green Bank.
C-PACE makes it possible for commercial property owners to obtain low-cost, long-term financing for energy efficiency, water conservation and renewable energy projects.
Bailey and Cooley co-founded Green Works Lending in 2015 to set up C-PACE lending programs in other states. The financing model has caught on since then, with about 40 states now permitting such loan programs.
In 2021, the co-founders sold Greenworks Lending for an undisclosed sum to Nuveen, a Chicago-based asset manager and subsidiary of New York financial planning firm TIAA.
Following the deal, the company changed its name to Nuveen Green Capital, which is still led by Bailey (CEO) and Cooley (chief investment officer).
The company this year is marking a decade in business and currently has almost 100 employees.