Jasper Wu

For Wu, timing has been everything. 

In 2023 and 2024, when high interest rates froze much of New York City’s deal flow, Wu’s Great Neck-based firm ZD Jasper kept buying, landing properties like a $24.5 million Upper East Side walkup at 171 East 86th Street and a $47 million development site in Long Island City.

Wu, the firm’s vice president and the face of all its dealmaking, credits that momentum to an intensely hands-on approach. Wu told Crain’s in 2025 that he spends roughly half his time in the field, working directly with subcontractors and overseeing construction details that can make or break a project.

The company was founded in 1996 by Wu’s father, Tom Zhidong Wu — whose initials give ZD Jasper its name — but Jasper didn’t rush into the family business. After graduating from Cornell and earning an MBA from Columbia, he worked at Ernst & Young as a robotics consultant and at the NBA analyzing rule changes and referee integrity before joining ZD Jasper in 2019.

Since then, Wu has helped steer the once Queens-centric firm west into Manhattan, while building credentials as a CFA, general contractor, construction superintendent and site safety supervisor. The firm has completed 13 residential buildings and has 14 in the pipeline.

— Elizabeth Cryan