Joel S. Marcus, JD, CPA, is the full-time Executive Chairman and Founder of Alexandria, a real estate investment trust (REIT) that pioneered life science real estate and transformed it from a specialty niche to a mainstream asset class. Alexandria is the preeminent, largest, and longest-tenured owner, operator, and developer uniquely focused on collaborative Megacampus™ ecosystems in AAA life science innovation cluster locations. Prior to April 2018, Mr. Marcus served as the company’s Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President.
Since co-founding the company in 1994 as a garage startup with $19 million in Series A capital, Mr. Marcus led the remarkable growth of Alexandria into an S&P 500® company that has become the leading REIT focused on the life science industry, with a total market capitalization of $28.8 billion and an operating asset base in North America of 39.6 million RSF as of March 31, 2025. From its IPO in May 1997 through March 31, 2025, Alexandria has generated an outstanding total shareholder return of 1,149%. Alexandria was named the NAIOP 2019 Developer of the Year and has earned seven Gold and eight overall Nareit Investor CARE (Communications and Reporting Excellence) Awards in recognition of superior investor communications among REITs.
During Mr. Marcus’s over three decades leading Alexandria, he has built a best-in-class company with a differentiated business model and a unique mission ― to create and grow life science ecosystems and clusters to advance human health ― that continue to distinguish Alexandria from all other REITs. Guided by Alexandria’s important mission, Mr. Marcus established four strategic and integrated verticals encompassing real estate, venture investments, thought leadership, and corporate responsibility that together catalyze life-changing innovation and drive positive change for the benefit of human health and society.
In recognition of the company’s outstanding track record across all aspects of its one-of-a-kind, mission-driven business, renowned author and business strategist Jim Collins has said, “Alexandria has achieved the three outputs that define a great company: Superior Results, Distinctive Impact, and Lasting Endurance.”
Mr. Marcus has accelerated Alexandria’s extraordinary growth through the tremendous execution of its visionary ecosystem-building and cluster development strategy in key locations, including Greater Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, Seattle, Maryland, Research Triangle, and New York City. Mr. Marcus also founded and continues to lead Alexandria Venture Investments, the company’s strategic venture capital platform. Since the platform’s inception in 1996, it has actively invested in disruptive life science companies that are advancing transformative new modalities, platforms, and innovative medicines to meaningfully improve human health. Mr. Marcus introduced the company’s thought leadership vertical in 2011 when he co-founded the renowned Alexandria Summit®. Established to serve as a highly collaborative, neutral platform, the Alexandria Summit convenes a world-class network of visionary stakeholders to explore the most important issues facing human health and leverage its powerful collective voice to foster impactful collaborations and shape policy.
Mr. Marcus leads Alexandria’s pioneering corporate responsibility initiatives, which aim to develop and implement scalable, long-term solutions to some of the nation’s most urgent challenges, including disease and other threats to human health, hunger and food insecurity, deficiencies in support services for the military and their families, opioid addiction, disparities in educational opportunities, the mental health crisis, and homelessness. He has also been deeply engaged with several highly impactful local and national non-profit organizations for many years, including through his service on the board of directors of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, Emily Krzyzewski Center, National Medal of Honor Museum, Navy SEAL Foundation, Office of Strategic Services Society, and TOPGUN Association. Mr. Marcus’s significant philanthropic contributions have been widely recognized, including with an honor from the 9/11 Memorial & Museum for Distinction in Civic Engagement and Renewal.
Prior to co-founding Alexandria, Mr. Marcus had an extensive legal career specializing in corporate finance and capital markets, venture capital, and mergers and acquisitions. During that time, he acquired expertise in the biopharmaceutical industry and was one of the principal architects of Kirin-Amgen, Inc., the trailblazing joint venture established in 1984. He was also a practicing certified public accountant and tax manager with Arthur Young & Co., where he focused on the financing and taxation of REITs. Mr. Marcus served on the board of directors of Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc. from 2006 until its acquisition by Johnson & Johnson in 2025.
Mr. Marcus received the inaugural Bisnow Life Sciences Icon & Influencer Award in September 2024. This prestigious award highlights his and Alexandria’s significant long-term contributions to and lasting impact on the life science real estate sector and broader life science industry. He was also named one of Real Estate Forum’s 2017 Best Bosses in commercial real estate and was previously a recipient of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Award (Los Angeles – Real Estate). Mr. Marcus received his undergraduate and Juris Doctor degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.