Joseph W. Kaempfer

Joey's headshot
Chairman, McArthurGlen Group

J.W. ‘Joey' Kaempfer is Chairman of London-based McArthurGlen Group, Europe's largest developer, owner and manager of designer outlet shopping villages. He founded the company in 1993. He was formerly Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Washington, DC-based Kaempfer Company, a diversified real estate development, management and construction firm specializing in first-class office buildings.

Europe's largest developer, owner and manager of designer outlet shopping villages. He founded the company in 1993. He was formerly Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Washington, DC-based Kaempfer Company, a diversified real estate development, management and construction firm specializing in first-class office buildings.

In 2002, Kaempfer merged the Kaempfer Company, which he founded in 1977, with the New York-based Vornado Realty Trust. Vornado is one of the U.S.'s largest property-owning companies, with a pedigree in quality office buildings, trade marts and other large real estate ventures.

Over the last 30 years Kaempfer's firms have worked with many of the world's outstanding modern architects including I.M. Pei, Harry Cobb, James Ingo Freed, Cesar Pelli, David Childs of S.O.M., Helmut Jahn, Don Hisaka and Lord Richard Rogers as  well as many exceptional architects specializing in historic preservation. The new developments showcase the latest high-quality design and are sensitive to their environment, while the renovation developments have been acclaimed for their historic fidelity to the original buildings and their surroundings. This body of work prompted Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for The New Yorker, to write: "for people like Joey Kaempfer...architecture is not a choice between art and commerce, but a way of embracing both these realms."

Kaempfer received his bachelor's degree from Washington Square College at New York University and his MBA from Harvard University.  He has served on a number of non-profit boards and charitable organizations including the National Board of MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and the Board of Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center. He is a former trustee of the American School in London and is currently Deputy Chairman of the Board of The Prince's Regeneration Trust. He occasionally lectures at Harvard Graduate School of Design.