Irv’s career began in 1978 as an independent floor trader on various Chicago exchanges. After successfully investing together in various commercial real estate assets, Irvin Kessler and Phillip Jaffe formed Provident Real Estate Ventures in 2013. Irv will draw upon his extensive 40 year experience of trading and hedge fund management to analyze real estate investments for the company. In 1996, the firm was purchased by Spear Leeds, and subsequently Goldman Sachs. During this time, Irv served on the board of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, as well as the Cincinnati Stock Exchange.

In 1994, Irv co-founded Deephaven Market Neutral Fund, a multi-strategy Hedge Fund focused on providing institutional clients with excellent risk adjusted returns. In 2000, Deephaven, and its sister firm Arbitrade, were sold to a public company. Until the end of 2001, Irv served as CEO and CIO of Deephaven which had $1.3 billion under management and generated an average annual return to investors of 22% with only 1 losing quarter over the 8 years of his stewardship.