People moves: AXA IM Alts names Hall infrastructure funds head

Pictet Alternative Advisors, SBF Fonder, AXA IM Alts, CBRE IM, Varde Partners, Greencoat UK Wind, Weave Living, RPower, Madison International Realty. New Forests

AXA IM Alts – Victoria Hall has been appointed to the newly created role of head of infrastructure funds. Based in London, Hall will report directly to Mark Gilligan, AXA IM Alts’ head of infrastructure. She will be responsible for supporting the growth of AXA IM Alts’ infrastructure platform, overseeing investment execution, portfolio management and the implementation of ESG and sustainable finance disclosure obligations. She will also work closely with new and existing clients seeking to invest in stable alternative assets that offer resilient inflation protection. Hall was most recently European head of transactions - special situations at AXA IM Alts, where she has spent the past 15 years in a variety of roles. 

Alecta Fastigheter - Tony Persson is replacing Magnus Billing on the board of Alecta’s real estate subsidiary Alecta Fastigheter (Alecta Real Estate) after the latter was fired from his job as CEO of the Swedish pensions giant earlier this month as a repercussion of large losses Alecta suffered on US bank stocks. Persson, who is head of fixed-income and strategy at Alecta, was elected as a new board member of the property firm at an extraordinary general meeting on 13 April.  

Pictet Alternative Advisors – Linus Nilsson has been appointed head of Nordics, based in Stockholm. He will focus on direct real estate transactions across the region and report to Charlie Baigler, head of acquisitions, direct real estate. Nilsson joins from SBF Fonder, where he was the CIO. Prior to SBF, he was a director at both NIAM in Stockholm and at Nuveen in London, where he worked on the Cityhold-mandate, a pan-European office joint venture which counted AP1 and AP2 among its key investors. 

CBRE Investment Management – Yann L’Hostillier has been appointed residential transaction manager in France. Based in Paris, he will be responsible for residential acquisitions. L’Hostillier began working in the social housing sector and has also worked as a real estate agent for Dauphine Rive Gauche. Since 2016 he has been an investment manager at SOFIDY (Tikehau Capital) the real estate asset management company.

Madison International Realty – Mark Schein has been appointed MD, COO and general counsel. Schein will focus on Madison’s strategic platform initiatives while growing relationships, corporate best practices, and processes. Schein previously served 3 years with Varde Partners as chief compliance officer and as chief compliance officer at York Capital Management from 2005 to 2020. He also previously held roles at Charles Schwab Capital Markets and US Trust/Bank of America. Schein will be based in Madison’s New York office.

Greencoat UK Wind – Jim Smith has been appointed non-executive director of the company. Smith will also be a member of the company’s audit, management engagement and nominations committees. Smith is the former managing director of SSE Renewables with 34 years’ experience within the electricity industry at SSE. He became managing director of SSE in 2018. His appointment will be effective from 1 May 2023.

RPower – Lynn A Lednicky has been appointed CFO. Lednicky has extensive experience in the energy sector over a 30-year career, which includes leadership positions at Newport LLC, Dynegy Inc and Destec Energy.

New Forests – Eva Warigia has been named associate director, investor relations, Africa along with four members to New Forests’ Kenya-based team under the leadership of Paul Ohaga, senior director, New Forests Africa. Warigia will be responsible for building relationships with investors focusing on New Forests’ African Forestry Impact Platform. Warigia joins from the East Africa Private Equity & Venture Capital Association where she spent six years, most recently as its CEO. Prior to that, Warigia was a senior consultant at Africa Practice. Kuda Phairah, associate director, operations is responsible for leading New Forests’ Kenya-based operations team and providing strategic and technical support to a portfolio of plantation forestry, conservation, and processing investments in Sub-Saharan Africa. He was most recently general manager of Forestry at York Timbers in South Africa. Kuda joined New Forests in November 2022. Moses Kimani is New Forests’ associate director, investments and is responsible for the origination and execution of investment transactions in Africa. He most recently worked as an investment principal at Phatisa Group. He joined New Forests in August 2022. Stephanie Bishop is associate director, environmental and social for New Forests’ investment programme in Africa. Bishop spent seven years at Miro Forestry and Timber Products where she was compliance director responsible for business integrity, along with environmental, health, safety, and social. Prior to this, Bishop was the corporate social responsibility manager at Green Resources. She joined New Forests in July 2022. Sean Lloyd, manager, operations supports operations and develops strategies for New Forests’ portfolio companies in Africa, as well as assisting with due diligence efforts and taking the lead on carbon modelling and reporting. Before moving to Kenya in January 2023, Lloyd spent four years working in New Forests’ Singapore team managing plantation forestry and processing assets for the Asia strategy. Prior to Singapore, Sean was working in New Forests’ Sydney office as an Analyst in the Investment Analytics team.

Green Street – Dan Figenshu has been appointed CFO. In his new position on Green Street’s senior leadership team, Figenshu oversees the firm’s finance, accounting, payroll, and reporting functions, reporting directly to Green Street’s CEO Jeffry Stuek Jr. Prior to joining Green Street, Figenshu served as the CFO at travel-tech company Mondee. Figenshu also previously served as COO/CFO at Rocketrip, a venture-backed travel-tech start-up that merged with Mondee. He also served as SVP of Finance at Mic Network. Earlier in his career, Figenshu held various finance and operational roles at global media companies, including Random House and Simon & Schuster.

Weave Living – Daiduke Noguchi has been appointed the country head in Japan. Noguchi will be based in the company’s newly opened office in Central Tokyo and will be responsible for business operations for the company in Japan. He brings 27 years of experience within the Japanese real estate industry as an investor, asset manager, investment banker and broker, working for large global and domestic institutions such as Allianz Real Estate, JP Morgan Asset Management, Mitsubishi Corporation, GE Real Estate, and Nikko Citigroup.