Tingting Zhang

Dr. Tingting Zhang is the Founder & CEO of the TerraCotta Group. She oversees the firm’s investment activities and manages portfolio risk. Dr. Zhang heads TerraCotta’s Credit Committee. She also leads the research and methodology agenda at the TerraCotta Lab, TerraCotta’s research arm.

Dr. Zhang founded TerraCotta in 2004 with the goal to bring academic insights, objectivity, and analytical rigor to CRE lending, building solutions to real-world challenges. She pioneered the research and application of a data-driven methodology in real estate credit investments and has actively applied quantitative methods to real-world problems for over 20 years. Before founding TerraCotta, Dr. Zhang was a senior researcher for Eurasia Group, a think tank that pioneered the deployment of quantitative methods in social and political studies. She conducted political and economic risk analyses for senior executives of global financial companies such as Citigroup, AIG, Deutsche Bank, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Dr. Zhang also consulted for the National Intelligence Council of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and contributed to the Lehman Brothers-Eurasia Group Stability Index, the first and only political risk index on Wall Street. Dr. Zhang has contributed to a number of research projects that were featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Newsweek, and The Economist. In 2021, She was one of sixty honorees globally featured in Private Equity International’s (PEI) special report on Women of Influence in Private Markets, which spanned several categories including private equity, private debt, real estate, venture, infrastructure, and cross strategies.

Dr. Zhang co-founded the Special Assets Management Association (SAMA) in 2008. SAMA is the only trade association for banking executives in special assets management and has more than 100 bank members. She sits on SAMA’s board of directors as its Chair.

Dr. Zhang received her Master’s degree in Quantitative Methods, and a Ph.D. in International Political Economy from the University of California, Los Angeles.