CRE Capital Markets Career Paths

Hello, First time poster. Looking to get some general career advice. I've been working in capital markets at a private credit fund & developer for the past year. Smaller firm but also relatively new (principals all 40) – $150m in credit fund and develop about 3-4 $20m projects a year. I work in both sides of the business.

I was originally supposed to be hired to do acquisitions and development (would rather do that) but during my interview process the VP of capital markets left so they pivoted and hired me for that. So technically I am the head of capital markets right now and my CEO has told me I'll be a "VP" in the next year. Again we are small so titles are pretty malleable but it's just me and my Ceo who do all capital market related stuff. My core job functions right now are: - Investor relations stuff for existing investors (K1s, 1099, general questions etc.) - Manage our CRM, investor portal, make marketing materials - Manage all the Capital calls and LP onboarding - Preliminary fundraising calls. Will answer general questions about the fund/dev deals and then usually gets handed off to my boss for a more comprehensive conversation - Managed 3-4 NPL sale processes - Reaching out to new LOC providers - Quarterly updates and investor letter for credit fund - Write OM's for development deals

I currently don't make a ton of money which I'm fine with for time being as I am getting a level of exposure I would'nt get anywhere else but obviously would like to be able to make more soon. I would make good bonuses if I raised money for the fund/development deals but the problem here is twofold: 1. I am young-ish (27) and don't really have any connections in the industry yet — I know plenty of people but none that allocate money or anything and it is tough to break into family offices, RIAs etc trying to do cold intros 2. Most of the existing investors are just my boss's friends/people he already knows and we don't have a serious need to go outside of that network.

I feel like I am coming up on a crossroad in the next 12 months and not sure what to do. I could try and move onto a larger firm that would probably make more money but would also most likely still be at an associate level (and tougher to move up). I could pivot and do development/acquisitions which I originally wanted to do but have less experience there and would have to start off even lower.

I don't even know exactly what a real estate capital markets career path even looks like to be honest. I just know what I do. And I do like my job and I get to be the "head" of what I do, but it also feels like right now most of what I do is kind of admin stuff for my boss. I don't actually bring in new investors and I don't really see a direct path to get there.