People moves: Ares promotes Solomon to co-head real estate

Patrizia, Ares, Europa, Revetas, Kayne Anderson, Archaea Energy, Decade Renewable Partners, Hamilton Lane, Edmond De Rothschild REIM, Verdion, Thinkproject, Gerald Eve, Madison International Realty, Arax Properties, Knight Frank, Feldberg Capital, Link Reit, Arjun Infrastructure Partners, GlobalLiving Companies, I Squared Capital, 
Greenbacker Renewable Energy

Ares Management Corporation – Julie Solomon, global COO, has been promoted to co-head of Ares real estate alongside Bill Benjamin, current head of real estate. Solomon and Benjamin will co-lead Ares’s $49bn real estate business globally. Solomon joined Ares in 2013. In addition to her role as a senior leader within Ares, she serves on the advisory board of NYPEN Real Estate – of which she is a founding member – and as a member of the Pension Real Estate Association and WX New York Women Executives in real estate.

I Squared Capital – Brian Collett is joining as a managing director to engage and work with institutional investors on strategic infrastructure investment opportunities. Michael Kumar is joining as a senior policy advisor to advise I Squared on capital markets activities. Collett was previously CIO of the Missouri Local Government Employees Retirement System. Before that, he held various positions across the investment industry including senior research manager for the South Carolina Retirement Systems and a senior technology analyst for the Russell Investment Group. Kumar, who spent 26 years at Morgan Stanley was most recently the firm’s global head of project, commodity and infrastructure finance. Last year, Kumar was appointed deputy chairman at the Klesch Group.

Clarion Partners – Indraneel Karlekar has joined the firm’s senior leadership team as a MD and global head of research and strategy. He is responsible for overseeing all facets of investment research in developing portfolio strategy, leveraging data analytics, and supporting capital raising and client service. Karlekar, who served in senior roles for ING Clarion Real Estate Securities from 2003-2011, rejoins Clarion after most recently spending over a decade with Principal Asset Management as global head of research and portfolio strategies. He also spent time in similar research roles with AIG Global Real Estate and Cole Capital.

Arjun Infrastructure Partners – The mid-market infrastructure fund manager has appointed Chirag Goyanka as managing director in the North American region, where he will play a key role in the expansion of Arjun’s investor coverage. Goyanka has over 20 years of experience at firms including Fiera Capital Corporation and Kotak Mahindra Group. 

Greenbacker Renewable Energy – Christopher Smith has been appointed chief financial officer. Daniel De Boer has been appointed head of infrastructure and Carl Weatherley-White as head of capital markets. Smith served as partner and CFO at SER Capital Partners. He led Sunnova Energy, through its IPO in 2019, as the company’s interim CFO and treasurer. As also served as MD and treasurer at Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure. Smith succeeds Spencer Mash, who co-founded Greenbacker in 2011. Mash will remain with Greenbacker as an executive VP reporting to the CEO. Prior to Greenbacker, De Boer served as the head of renewables at Allianz Capital Partners of America. Previously in his career, De Boer established Onyx Renewable Partners within Blackstone Energy Partners and launched DE Shaw Renewable Investments while part of the DE Shaw Group’s private equity team. In the newly created Head of Infrastructure position, De Boer takes over an integral function formerly performed by Mehul Mehta during his previous tenure as Greenbacker’s CIO. As the head of capital markets, Prior to joining Greenbacker, Weatherley-White served as the head of renewable investments at Advantage Capital. Previously, he held the positions of CEO and CFO at VivoPower International. His prior experiences include managing director and group head of global project finance at Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers and director of energy structured finance at Credit Suisse.

Greystone – Leena Amin has joined the firm as a senior managing director of structured finance. In this role, Amin will focus on expanding the firm’s bank and alternative capital relationships as well as developing and expanding Greystone’s structured product advisory and capital markets offerings. Based in Virginia, Amin reports to executive managing director Debby Jenkins, who joined Greystone in 2023. Prior to joining Greystone, Amin spent a decade at Freddie Mac where she, among other activities, led the multifamily structured transactions team. Earlier in her career, Amin worked at Cohen & Company.  

Hamilton Lane – The private markets investment management firm has added managing director Dominik von Scheven and principal Taylor McManus to its global real assets investments team. Both have joined in the new roles created to focus specifically on infrastructure investing and report to Brent Burnett, head of real assets. Von Scheven, located in Frankfurt, joined the firm earlier this month. He has more than two decades of experience, including more than 10 years in senior infrastructure investment roles at HSBC and DWS. McManus, who is based in Toronto, joined the firm in September 2023 and is responsible for originating, evaluating and executing direct, secondary and primary fund investment opportunities across North America. He previously held roles at Instar Asset Management and Macquarie Capital Markets Canada, developing in-depth expertise on middle-market infrastructure and private equity investments.

Gerald Eve – Henry Fellows and Matthew Prout have joined the firm’s planning and development team to focus on development agency opportunities in central London. In the operational real estate team, Mark Churchouse joins the leisure team. Fellows spent a decade at Capital Real Estate Partners before joining CBRE. Prout joins Gerald Eve from CBRE. Churchouse has 35 years of experience in operational real estate, working as a valuer and adviser at businesses including CBRE and Fleurets.

Kayne Energy Infrastructure – Eric Javidi and Harrison Little have rejoined the firm in senior leadership roles. Javidi will join Jim Baker, currently the head of the firm, as a managing partner and co-head. Little will serve as deputy co-head and director of research. Little will lead the firm’s public company research efforts in addition to assuming broad portfolio management responsibilities. Javidi brings extensive investing, operating and leadership experience in energy infrastructure and the energy transition. Eric returns to Kayne Anderson, having previously worked with Baker as a managing director of Kayne Energy until 2019. Additionally, Javidi has served in c-suite executive roles for a number of public and private companies in the energy infrastructure and renewable-energy sectors, most recently as CFO and consultant to the board of directors of Archaea Energy. Javidi also served as CFO of CrossAmerica Partners and as president and CEO of Southcross. Javidi began his career as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers, Barclays and UBS. Little returns to Kayne Anderson having previously worked with Baker as an investment professional within Kayne Energy until 2015. Little recently served as a partner and the director of research for Decade Renewable Partners. Prior to co-founding Decade, Little spent four years at Citadel. Little began his career as an investment banker at Jefferies.

Europa – Julia Ashford has been appointed to the new role of director of head of performance analytics. Based in London, Ashford will provide the business with bespoke analytical frameworks to measure and drive performance across Europa’s investments. Ashford joins from Patrizia where she most recently was head of performance analytics. She is also immediate past chair of the performance measurement committee at INREV. Julia started her career as an accountant and is a fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.

Madison International Realty – The real estate private-equity firm has hired Jenna Barry as portfolio and asset manager. Based in London with a focus on Madison’s European and UK property portfolio, Barry will report to the firm’s head of portfolio and asset management, Kim Adamek, who is based in New York. Barry recently spent four years as an associate director at Arax Properties. Her other previous roles include senior positions at firms including Dunedin Property, Running Stream International and Evans Randall, with exposure across a number of property sectors in the UK, Europe and Asia.

Link Reit – Duncan Gareth Owen has been appointed independent non-executive director.  Under the designation of chair elect, he will sit on Link Reit’s finance and investment committee and the nomination committee. When the maximum nine-year term of the current chairman, Nicholas Allen, ends in January next year, Owen will succeed him to chair the company. Owen is currently an independent non-executive director and chair of the board of Workspace Group. He also chairs Sellar Property Group. Up until 2023, he was CEO of Immobel Capital Partners. Before that, he was the global head of real estate of Schroders from 2012 to 2020. Owen was the CEO of Invista Real Estate Investment Management Holdings from 2006 to 2011. Prior to those appointments, he was managing director of Insight Investment Management and the co-founder of Gatehouse Investment Management. He held various positions in Jones Lang LaSalle and LaSalle Investment Management from 1990 to 2001. Owen was a member of the board of governors of the Church Commissioners and the chairman of their real assets investment committee from 2016 to 2022, and a member of the policy committee of the British Property Federation for 14 years. 

Revetas – Antonio Pomes is now responsible for overseeing the firm’s Polish portfolio of assets, including Trinity One in Warsaw, Bonarka for Business, and Buma Square in Krakow. Pomes, who joined the Revetas team as director-country head Poland in the portfolio management department will now work closely with the senior management, investment management, and property management teams as part of a new strategic partnership with the company.

Knight Frank – Charles Olver, Rebecca Schofield and Jon Reynolds will be promoted to proprietary partner, effective from 1 April 2024. Olver is head of Chelsea sales and joined Knight Frank as a graduate in 2008. Schofield works in industrial agency and is head of the Sheffield Office. She has had a 20-year career at Knight Frank. Reynolds is regional partner and leads North, City and East London lettings.  

Verdion – Bartek Urbanowicz joins Verdion as senior technical project manager, focused on new projects in Germany. He was previously with Goldbeck Südwest, where he worked as project manager. Further experience includes working at Züblin, Porr and Jäger Bautec. Sarah Klein, senior technical project manager, will also be instrumental in the delivery of new assets across Germany. She joins Verdion from ecoParks. Prior to that, she worked as site manager at Max Bögl, an international construction company, and as project manager for VGP Industriebau. Valerie Setz, based at Verdion’s Frankfurt offices, has been promoted to senior asset manager following three years in the business.

Feldberg Capital – Hasan Şan has been appointed head of technical asset management. Şan previously worked as technical asset manager at Edmond De Rothschild REIM.

GlobalLiving Companies – Greg Schwartz has joined as regional growth director. In his new role, Schwartz will be responsible for talent acquisition in the Pennsylvania region, beginning at Keller Williams Blue Bell – Lafayette Hill. Most recently, Schwartz was the team leader of Keller Williams Blue Bell – Lafayette Hill. Schwartz has over 20 years of experience selling and leading sales professionals. After spending the majority of his career in B2B sales for Fortune 500 companies, he transitioned to the real estate industry.

Thinkproject – Darren Roos and Constance Minc have been appointed non-executive directors. Roos will assume the role of chair of the board at Thinkproject. He was most recently IFS’s CEO. Prior to IFS, Roos served as president of SAP’s global ERP Cloud business, with prior roles as general manager of Northern Europe and EMEA COO for the company. Other previous positions include president of EMEA, APJ, LATAM at Software AG, during which time he also served on Software AG’s Group executive board. In addition to his appointment as Thinkproject’s chairperson, Roos is chair of the board at IFS, and also a non-executive board director at Sitecore. Minc is currently the group CFO at IGT1, the holding entity of IFS and WorkWave and, a non-executive board director at Septeo. Minc will join Thinkproject as a board member and take on the responsibility of chair for the audit committee. Minc held the role of CFO for IFS from May 2019 to April 2023. Minc has over 12 years in investment banking at companies such as Barclays Capital, Macquarie Capital Advisers, and Lehman Brothers.