EUROPE - Johan van der Ende, chief investment officer for strategy and structured investments at Dutch pension fund PGGM, is the new chairman of INREV, the European Association for Investors in Non-Listed Real Estate Vehicles.

Van der Ende takes over from Michiel Olland, a former executive vice-president for real estate in Europe and Asia-Pacific at Dutch pension fund ABP, and now a director at SNS Property Finance, who has been INREV chairman since its launch in 2003.

Van der Ende said he was "honoured and excited to be given the opportunity to play an integral part in INREV’s work and its success story.

"The INREV funds database and index are the anchors of what the association is trying to achieve in terms of market benchmarking and comparability between funds. I intend to make the development and quality of the database and the INREV Index a key focus of my work,"

He said two other areas of focus this year would be the implementation of INREV’s professional standards and guidelines and their adoption by the industry, plus the rollout of a training and education programme.

Van der Ende said Amsterdam-based INREV wanted to broaden its base of managerial expertise and would look outside the Netherlands for new appointments. "Since it has been a Dutch-based organisation, we think we should ‘non-Dutchify’ it a little bit in the future."

INREV is currently recruiting a director of research, he said. "We feel that the new director of research should be international and not necessarily Dutch."

Olland, who will remain on the executive board of INREV, said the position of chairman had evolved from managerial to more representative role in the past four years. "Because INREV is an investor-driven organisation, I am delighted that Johan is coming from one of the major institutional real estate investors and his long experience in the investment industry makes him exceptionally qualified for the post," he said.

"I’m extremely proud of what’s been achieved in four years. INREV has become the leading platform for information, networking and the initiation of new professional standards in the non-listed real estate market."