Growing up, Rachel Donnelly had a plan: Earn doctorate degrees in law and psychology and become a forensic psychologist.
Think TV shows like Criminal Minds or Mindhunter.
“About the time I was picking a school, Baylor [University] sent me a letter saying they’d automatically admit me to their spring class,” Donnelly said. “I went to visit and decided to get the law degree first, and then I could go back to get my Ph.D. afterward. Needless to say, I never ended up applying to get the psychology degree.”
The J.D. has worked out just fine, as Donnelly is now the chief compliance officer and deputy general counsel at Affinius Capital, an institutional and real estate investment and management firm with reportedly more than $60 billion in gross assets under management.
A review of news media reports and filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows San Antonio-based Affinius has been involved in dozens of transactions and fundings in residential real estate, hospitality and, more recently, data centers and other technology-focused properties.
Most of the investments and transactions, according to leaders at Affinius and lawyers who have worked with Affinius, have been successful because they have Donnelly’s fingerprints on them.
“Rachel consistently leaves things better than she found them, pushing for better process, efficiency and outcomes well beyond legal and compliance, and she puts her hand up whenever extra support or guidance is needed,” said Justin Hildebrandt, a partner and head of Europe operations for Affinius Capital. “Her pursuit of excellence ripples through the organization, even in areas as seemingly mundane as compliance. She handles sensitive matters with respect, care and balance, mindful of the impact tough decisions have on those involved.”
Donnelly’s recent successes include taking on the global CCO role in the middle of a significant SEC examination, guiding Affinius through two other SEC exams during the past 18 months, leading the structuring and negotiation of multiple real estate fund formations across several jurisdictions at the same time, and supporting the legal complexities of the company’s name change and rebranding.
“She did this while carrying dual legal and compliance responsibilities across compliance, legal transactions, corporate matters — U.S., Europe and Mexico — and fund formation, and while also supporting the human resources function through a period of transition,” Hildebrandt said.
With so many public achievements and even more behind-the-scenes confidential successes over the past two years, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s San Antonio Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Donnelly the recipient of the 2026 San Antonio Corporate Counsel Award for Chief Corporate Compliance Officer of the Year.
“Rachel has played a critical role in helping Affinius Capital navigate a period of significant growth, business transformation and increasing institutional complexity,” said Kirkland & Ellis partner John Kaercher, who nominated Donnelly for the award. “As demand for AI-driven digital infrastructure accelerated, Rachel played a key role in supporting Affinius Capital’s continued expansion in the data center sector.”
“Working closely with investment, business, and executive leadership teams, she helped navigate the legal, regulatory, governance, and risk-management considerations associated with some of the firm’s most significant digital infrastructure initiatives,” Kaercher said. “Her practical, business-oriented approach enabled Affinius to pursue strategic opportunities while maintaining the rigorous standards expected by institutional investors.”
“Some of these matters are confidential, so I don’t want to overshare, but she led the company through some very challenging situations that, without her, could have easily gone sideways,” Kaercher said. “Amid handling those challenging issues, she’s also helped successfully launch their recent data center fund, and multiple European fund products, while continuing to lead the integration of Affinius Capital Management (formerly Square Mile, which was acquired by Affinius) into Affinius Capital Advisors. In our experience, whenever something needs to be done and done well, senior management calls on Rachel and she delivers.”
Donnelly, in an interview with The Lawbook, said she couldn’t give a specific number of transactions because her work “touches so many parts of the business.”
Depending on the deal, she said, she may be “extremely involved or just monitoring from the sidelines.”
“It is a bit tricky for me to give you specifics about any particular deal because so much of what I do is either confidential or part of a private placement that can’t be discussed in a public article,” she said. “I am working closely with my data center and European colleagues on the expansions of those businesses. I’m also working closely with our credit team as we continue to grow that business.”
“This year has seen a shift in the real estate market that has increased a lot of aspects of deal flow, which is exciting,” Donnelly said. “I think the challenge for me is always juggling all of the competing demands both at work as well as at home. I’m working to get better at delegating in both parts of my life as well.”
A shining example of Donnelly’s expertise, according to lawyers who work with her, has been her leadership in “helping establish the legal and structural framework supporting” an Affinius digital economy data center fund, which PitchBook puts at more than $1 billion.
“Rachel has enabled Affinius to advance its digital infrastructure strategy and support the firm’s continued investment in next-generation digital assets,” Kaercher said. “Her leadership of the firm’s fund formation and structuring function further highlights the strategic role she plays in supporting Affinius’ capital raising and investment objectives.”
Donnelly was born in Houston. Her dad was an electrical engineer with Schlumberger who transferred to different work locations every few years. Donnelly’s mother had a degree in biology and worked in education.
“We moved to Connecticut the summer before I was in sixth grade, New Jersey the summer before I was in eighth grade and Austin the summer before I started 11th grade,” she said.
After graduating with a degree in psychology and sociology from Trinity University in 2000 and Baylor Law School in 2003, Donnelly spent a year as a briefing attorney for the Texas Supreme Court.
As a summer associate at Baker Botts, Donnelly split her time between the real estate and labor and employment practice groups.
“I knew I did not want to be in a courtroom and was only interested in transactional law,” she said. “I had no idea that labor and employment included both litigation and transactional work, so I quickly decided real estate was a better fit for me. I liked the tangible nature of the practice.”
Donnelly primarily represented sponsors in their real estate transactions during the decade she spent at Baker Botts. She also frequently collaborated with the corporate department on the real estate aspects of their deals.
“I learned everything I know about real estate from Jon Dunlay and Pat Stanton — two phenomenal partners who remain close friends of mine today,” she said. “They had very different styles and it was great to have the opportunity to work closely with them during the first ten years of my career. Pat has now retired and so our collaboration now generally involves our shared love of good wine. Jon Dunlay, however, has the fortune/misfortune of now working for me as outside counsel.”
Stanton was managing partner of the Dallas office for Baker Botts but then moved to San Francisco to open the firm’s California operations.
Dunlay told The Lawbook that Donnelly “has always had a presence about her that inspires confidence and trust in clients.”
“As a young lawyer, you could tell that she was something special,” he said. “She had a great desire to learn how to practice law and become an excellent lawyer and counselor. Watching her develop and become an important part of one of our clients has been a true pleasure. Among her unique talents, which serve her well as corporate counsel for Affinius, are handling many matters for different groups at Affinius at the same time and reducing the various issues pertaining to each matter to the essential issues.”
“Now, I work for her,” said Dunlay, who also pointed out that Donnelly has “managed to pass the level two test for becoming a sommelier.”
In 2014, Donnelly moved in-house to become the general counsel and CCO at Austin-based Hawkeye Partners.
As a young associate, she had worked with Baker Botts partner Jim Taylor on a large hotel portfolio acquisition. But Taylor later became the GC at Hawkeye.
“One day, Jim reached out to me and asked me to meet him for lunch,” she said. “He told me that he wanted to retire and that I was going to take his place as general counsel and chief compliance officer. My recollection of the conversation is that it was more of a statement than a question, but Jim was right that it was a great opportunity.”
“He stayed for a couple of years and taught me the fund and securities practice and became a good friend and mentor,” she said.
While she was still at Baker Botts, she met Steve Waters, general counsel at Affinius Capital, “through a friend of a friend of a friend that felt like we should know each other.”
They started having lunch about every six months, even after she went to Hawkeye.
“He consistently asked me if I was interested in coming to work with him at Affinius in a variety of ways,” she said. “He was patient with me and never pushy. By the time I felt like it was the right time for me to make the move in 2020, Steve was working towards retiring. We ended up only overlapping for four months once I joined.”
“The clear theme in my career has been that people have always reached out to me with career opportunities and mentored me through the transitions I’ve made,” she said. “I’ve been so fortunate to have great mentors and champions of my career over the years.”
Donnelly joined Affinius Capital in 2020 as assistant general counsel as the company was planned to register with the SEC as an investment adviser.
She specifically told Affinius CEO Len O’Donnell that she did not want to be the chief compliance officer.
“I spent the majority of my time the first few years at Affinius working on data center acquisitions and structuring the capital for the development of the data centers and formation of fund vehicles,” she said. “I also spent a lot of time working with our European team on various legal matters, and I worked very closely with the new CCO that we hired to register the business with the SEC on creating the compliance program and related policies.”
In 2023, Affinius was in the middle of two routine SEC examinations when the firm’s CCO left the company for another job.
“That was the biggest change in my career at Affinius because Len called me to our first-floor conference room and told me that I was going to be the interim CCO and help us through the SEC exams,” she said. “He acknowledged that he promised me I wouldn’t have to be the CCO so we would hire someone. Then I apparently did too good a job at being the CCO because a year or so later the interim got dropped from my title.”
Affinius promoted Donnelly to global corporate compliance officer in 2024 and then added the deputy GC title this past April. She now oversees all fund formation and structuring for the company.
“I actually think that for Affinius, having the legal and compliance departments intertwined is to the benefit of the company,” she said. “Especially as it relates to the fund-investor-capital aspects of our business, it is necessary to understand and be embedded in both the legal and compliance worlds.”
Affinius Capital Chief Operating Officer Peter McLaughlin describes Donnelly as an “incredibly straight shooter.”
“It sounds cliché, but she truly helps us through difficult, required work, like structuring investment vehicles to meet our clients’ and partners’ needs, looking at our business through the lens of compliance and legal best practices,” he said. “The work is woven into the ‘can do’ business process and attitude and she never acts like a distant gatekeeper. She keeps it light and motivating while working incredibly hard and bringing all the necessary expertise.”
McLaughlin said the “overall business apparatus” required to “manage our many investors and investments across different investment and fund structures, and many geographies, is very complex.” He pointed out that Affinius is also an SEC-registered investment adviser with dozens of investment vehicles and more than 100 institutional clients.
In addition, Donnelly is a critical leader for two vertically integrated developer affiliates: Corscale, which works on data center projects; and Mountpark, which develops and manages Affinius’ European logistics portfolio.
“I’ve worked closely with those groups and helped advise on managing potential conflicts arising out of their affiliation with Affinius,” she said. “I also have worked a lot in the past year about setting the company up for a regulatory purposes in Europe to facilitate fundraising in Europe for European vehicles and European transactions.”
William Naunton, a partner at DLA Piper in London, calls Donnelly “the Simone Biles of theTexas legal community — but taller.”
“Rachel combines a ferocious intellect and strong legal mind with a pragmatic approach to problem solving,” Naunton said. “She is all over the detail without letting it control her. She runs a happy team that clearly respects and likes her. She is a great people person and is good at motivating those who work for her to give of their best.”
Affinius Capital’s Hildebrandt said Donnelly has another secret title at the company:
“As the de facto ‘Chief Food and Beverage Officer’ she has ensured that there is a healthier assortment of food throughout the company in our San Antonio headquarters as well as our global offices,” he said. “As part of Rachel’s focus on employee/team support, she has also done a company-wide focus on improving the availability of healthier snacks and focusing on the benefits of hydration. For Affinius Capital, she is the go-to authority on the right wines for all our internal and client-facing events.”
Click here for a Premium Subscriber Q&A with Donnelly, where she shares what outside counsel should know about working with her.
Seven fun facts
Favorite book: I’ll give you my favorite genre, which is mystery fiction. I read so much for work that I spend my free time reading books that are suspenseful and easy to read. I travel internationally with some regularity and my goal when I do is to find a bookstore and buy a novel written and published locally. Those books have been really interesting because they are fun to read, but I also learn about a new area of the world.
Favorite music group: My favorite as a teenager and in college was Dave Matthews Band and I still love them as a throwback.
Favorite movie: Anything in the theater with my kids.
Favorite restaurant: My favorite food is enchiladas. There are so many good places to get them in San Antonio that I couldn’t pick just one!
Favorite beverage: Wine. I’ve learned a good amount about it over the years but still have more to learn and enjoy the process. I have my WSET Level 2 sommelier certification. I’ve finished the coursework for Level 3, but my day job keeps getting in the way of studying for the exam!
Favorite vacation: In between finishing my clerkship with the Texas Supreme Court and starting my job at Baker Botts, my husband and I went to Europe for 10 weeks. Hard to beat a period of time like that where we had no other responsibilities. And hard to believe now that we did it with pay phones and internet cafes.
Hero in life: My dad. He’s brilliant but also intuitive and understands people in a way I’ve realized over the years is very unique. He can fix anything and is more patient and willing to sacrifice for others than anyone I know.