About Services Industries Approach Engagements Team Insights Referrals Contact
4 Regions
First Nations communities served —
Island, Coast, Lower Mainland, North
$1B+
Advised on Vancouver Island
and coastal BC
$7B+
CAD real estate advised
across Canada since 2018
The Practice

How we work in this sector.

Nations are building the economic infrastructure to fund their own priorities, and the decisions involved are among the most consequential any organisation makes: what to do with land held for generations, which partnerships to enter, how to convert assets into durable revenue without compromising what the assets are for.

We provide the analytical and strategic support those decisions require. That includes economic development strategy built as a working decision tool rather than a document, real estate and development advisory across acquisition through delivery, feasibility and business case work on community facilities and commercial ventures, capital planning that maps what is financeable against what is available, and joint venture structuring with outside partners on terms that hold.

What distinguishes the work is that it is built around how decisions actually get made. Funding routes are mapped against Council resolution, Trustee approval and member-vote thresholds before anything is recommended, so leadership knows what each option triggers. Trust distribution capacity is modelled before a structure that depends on it is proposed. Analysis arrives in a form Chief and Council can act on directly.

Nations have usually heard from their membership already, through channels that predate any advisor. Our role is to structure, test and validate against that direction rather than to rediscover it.

Devan McLaren leads the practice with Vinny Jawanda, who has led the firm's Indigenous advisory engagements across British Columbia.

Engagement Types

  • Economic development strategy
  • Real estate and development advisory
  • Land acquisition and offer strategy
  • Feasibility and business case
  • Capital planning and structuring
  • Joint ventures with outside partners
  • Governance and entity design
  • Portfolio and decision tools
Capabilities

What we deliver.

01

Economic Development Strategy

Vision, pillars and a prioritised initiative portfolio screened against criteria the community sets, delivered with an implementation roadmap and a Council approval package.

02

Opportunity Identification

Long-lists built across real estate, lands and resources, member business, commercial ventures, cultural economy and own-source revenue, then ranked on a weighted scorecard.

03

Real Estate & Development

Acquisition through delivery on community-held and fee-simple lands — feasibility, pro formas, partner selection and development structuring.

04

Governance-Aware Structuring

Options mapped against Council resolution, Trustee approval and member-vote thresholds, so leadership understands what each path requires before committing to it.

05

Capital Planning

Capital stacks assembled from Trust distributions, authorised borrowing, external contributions and vendor structures, modelled against capacity and limits.

06

Feasibility & Business Case

Whether a facility, venture or development works financially, tested across scenarios, with the community-benefit case made alongside the financial one.

07

Joint Venture Structuring

Multi-party structures with developers and institutional partners, with economics modelled across scenarios before terms are papered.

08

Portfolio Dashboard

A custom decision tool with integrated models, sensitivity tooling and capital-stack views, built so the economic development team can run it independently.

09

Member Validation Support

Materials and analysis prepared for presentation to membership, with the case made in terms a community audience can assess and challenge.

Selected Work

Engagement highlights.

A selection of engagement highlights, not an exhaustive list. Client names, project names and property addresses have been removed and regions generalised, consistent with our confidentiality agreements. Unit counts and dollar figures are order-of-magnitude, drawn from underlying models on file.

Economic Development Strategy
British Columbia
Six-month, five-phase mandate delivering a Council-approved strategy: baseline lands and asset inventory, regional market and peer benchmarking, a long-list of 40–60 opportunities across six revenue streams screened to a ranked short-list of 15–25, pro formas for priority initiatives, a governance model, and a two-year implementation roadmap delivered with a custom portfolio dashboard.
Land Acquisition & Funding Strategy
Vancouver Island
Acquisition strategy for a time-sensitive purchase — opening offer, funding structured across a municipal contribution, vendor take-back note and authorised borrowing, and negotiation analysis built on the seller's own development economics. Structured to avoid a member vote across the entire negotiating range. Roughly 24 units of latent density, ~$29M gross development value, acquisition structured in the $3M–$4M range.
Master Plan Joint Venture
Lower Mainland, BC
Multi-party joint venture structuring between a community-owned economic development corporation, a developer and an institutional partner. Roughly 150–340 units modelled across scenarios, with total project cost ranging $90M–$260M depending on structure.
Purpose-Built Rental Delivery
Vancouver Island
Purpose-built rental housing delivered with a local developer partner on community-held land — underwriting, partnership structuring and coordination between the community, the developer and the financing party.
Community Facility Feasibility
Northern BC
Three-scenario feasibility and capital structuring for a community-led cultural facility, weighing community purpose against long-term financial sustainability.
Hospitality Development Strategy
Coastal BC
Pro forma and capital strategy for a roughly 24-cabin and 38-campsite hospitality expansion on community-held lands, with construction scheduled to begin in late 2026.
Practice Leadership

Who does the work.

Practice Lead
Devan McLaren
Founder & Partner

Devan founded Triple Beam Advisors and leads every practice the firm runs. He has been instrumental in underwriting and advising on transactions with an aggregate value exceeding $1 billion, spanning debt and equity across real estate, operating companies and specialised sectors, and is among the more experienced advisors working in US cannabis finance. Prior to founding the firm he was a Senior Analyst with the Fiore Group, covering private equity and venture capital investments across real estate, entertainment, energy, technology and retail. He is based in Los Angeles.

$5B+
Transaction & advisory
value
12+
Years advisory
experience
Sector Specialist
Vinny Jawanda
Director

Vinny specialises in real estate and Indigenous advisory. He has been instrumental in the underwriting and advisory of over $6.4 billion CAD in development projects across Canada, working with some of the country's largest developers across multifamily, commercial, mixed-use and master-planned developments. His work with First Nations communities and institutional landowners spans economic development strategy, acquisition, capital planning and development delivery. He began his career in construction materials and insurance M&A. He is based in Calgary.

$5B+
Transaction & advisory
value supported
50+
Real estate
engagements
Other Practices

Explore the rest of the firm.

Begin a Conversation

Tell us about your situation.

The first conversation is exploratory and confidential. We listen, ask questions, and give you a straight answer on how we would approach it.