Jason Gilbert, CPA

Bio

Jason co-leads the Real Estate Investment Fund practice at Armanino. During his career, he has specialized in the real estate investing sector, focused on private equity debt funds and mortgage real estate investment trusts (REITs). His day-to-day energy is spent advising clients on fund accounting, best practices in the industry, the structuring of offering documents, financial close, back office operations and fund management software.

Jason has been a regular speaker at the IMN Real Estate Opportunity and Private Fund conference, the California Mortgage Association and the American Association of Private Lenders. He earned his BS in business administration and his MBA from California State University, East Bay.

Q&A

The culture is young, energetic and fast-paced, and the firm has won a lot of awards for being a best place to work. I knew that I wanted to be part of Armanino’s growth and the opportunities it offered.

Switching my college major from engineering to business. My dad is an engineer, and I always thought I’d follow in his footsteps. But then I took a business course and found that it made more sense to me, so I made the hard choice to shift gears and pursue a different career path.

I particularly enjoy working with clients who are highly motivated, fast-paced and results-driven. They respect our knowledge and look to us for advice on how to strengthen their business, and they are willing and able to act on it and do whatever it takes to reach their goals.

With clients, I try to be as efficient as possible, because I realize their time is extremely valuable. With staff, I help them prioritize and stay focused on whatever adds the most value for the team or client, so they don’t spin their wheels.

There is one period that stands out. In the same month, I found out I had passed the CPA exam, I won the NASCAR California state stock car championship and I got married. It was the culmination of three very important things in my life.

Set specific goals, with a timeline attached, and strive to meet them. It doesn’t matter if your goal is passing the CPA exam or your next promotion―decide when you want to attain it, then build your strategy to get there based on that.