Knight Frank, Blackstone, White Oak Global Advisors, Cushman & Wakefield, Aviva Investors, Principle Real Estate, Leste Group, AMP Capital, Deloitte, Nuveen Real Estate, Ringley Group, Xenia Estates, Altis Property Partners, Qualitas, Cromwell Property

BlackstoneBrian X Tierney has been appointed senior managing director and global head of infrastructure portfolio operations and asset management. Tierney joins Blackstone following 23 years with American Electric Power, where he previously served as CFO, executive VP for strategy and executive VP for the firm’s largest utility segment, AEP East. In this role, Tierney will partner with portfolio company CEOs to drive key value creation initiatives throughout our infrastructure companies. Steve Bolze, current head of infrastructure portfolio operations and asset management, will retire from his day-to-day role and become an executive advisor to Blackstone Infrastructure Partners in the fourth quarter of 2021. 

Aviva Investors – The global asset manager has appointed Todor Valev as assistant fund manager of the European real estate long income fund. Based in Frankfurt, Valev will assist in the delivery of the fund’s strategy, including liquidity analysis, reporting, supervision of transactions and debt strategy. Valev joins from Principle Real Estate where he was transaction manager. Sam Gadar has also recently joined the team as origination manager, associate director, responsible for the origination of long income real estate assets. Gadar joins from Cushman & Wakefield where he was an associate director, working on transactions and advisory within their healthcare team.

Nuveen Real EstatePeter Hansell has been appointed senior director within the manager’s €4.5bn European commercial real estate debt team. Hansell, who is based in London, will be focusing on debt investments, including the origination of new opportunities and the management of the firm’s various continental Europe and UK debt strategies. He joins the firm from Cairn Capital in London, where he held the role of head of real estate debt. Prior to his role at Cairn Capital, Hansell worked at Lehman Brothers, Bayerische Hypo and Vereinsbank, Standard & Poor’s, Royal Bank of Scotland and BNP Paribas Real Estate. 

Cromwell PropertyJonathan Callaghan, former CEO of Sydney-based Investa Property, has joined Cromwell as its new chief executive. Callaghan, who will replace Cromwell’s long-standing CEO, Paul Weightman – who left the company last year – will start his new role no later than 1 January  2022. He is credited with the sale of Investa’s office and land businesses and was and appointed CEO in 2016. Michael Wilde and Brett Hinton, who stepped up as acting CEO and acting CFO of Cromwell when Weightman departed, will resume their previous roles as chief financial officer and head of treasury respectively.

Knight Frank – The global real estate adviser has promoted Emily Relf, director, Asia Pacific capital markets to head of global capital strategies. Based in Singapore, Relf will continue to report to Neil Brookes, who was recently appointed to lead global capital markets for Knight Frank, also based in Singapore. A specialist in the living sectors, Relf has been in Singapore since 2015 after joining Knight Frank as a graduate in London in 2011. In her new role, Relf will focus on the development of key capital markets client relationships, working closely with the firm’s global capital markets head to understand client priorities by market and asset class and develop a key client program strategy aligned to those priorities.

White Oak Global AdvisorsEric Tanjeloff has been hired as managing principal to lead White Oak Real Estate Capital, a newly formed affiliate focused on credit opportunities in commercial real estate. The new business will initially focus on direct loan origination secured by high-quality real estate assets in the US. Tanjeloff brings over 20 years of experience to White Oak Real Estate Capital. Most recently, he served as a managing director and head of real estate investments at Melody Capital Partners and was also a member of its investment committee. Prior to joining Melody, Tanjeloff worked in the real estate and lodging investment banking division at JP Morgan as an executive director and co-led CBRE’s real estate capital and advisory division in the US.

Cushman & Wakefield – The global real estate services firm has expanded its Central London retail leasing team with the appointment of Megan Hutchinson as associate. Hutchinson will be working across a mixture of retail and restaurant instructions in Central London and joins from H&M where she was a leasing manager. Prior to that, she spent six years at JLL specialising in Central London investment.

AMP CapitalOdette Linnett has been appointed investment director with the AMP Capital Community Infrastructure Fund. The fund has appointed Carolyn van Leuven as senior advisor and Mathew Pirotta as associate. Linnett’s role is newly-created, and she will take on asset management responsibilities for a number of CommIF assets including Victorian and NSW schools and the Darwin Convention Centre. She was recruited from Deloitte Asia-Pacific where she was an investment director and previous to that she was with the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance. A trained lawyer, Van Leuven has previously been a deputy chief executive for the New Zealand Ministry of Justice and the Department of Corrections. She will join the boards of Auckland South Corrections Facility and New Zealand Hospital Car Parks, both are the fund’s assets. Pirotta was most recently part of AMP Capital’s finance team.

Leste Group – The global alternative investment manager has appointed Joshua Patinkin as managing director of US real estate. In his new role, Patinkin will focus on expanding Leste Group’s US real estate investment platform as well as manage Leste’s existing US real-estate portfolio, including nearly $1bn in investments and co-investments that Leste led or participated in, across multifamily, single-family homes for rent, hospitality and healthcare sectors. He joins Leste Group from Golub & Company, a Chicago-based real estate development and investment firm where, as senior VP of capital markets. Prior to Golub, Patinkin served as VP of finance and investments for Starwood Capital Group’s retail operating affiliate and held earlier research and development roles with BMO Capital Markets investment banking division in New York and General Growth Properties.

Altis Property PartnersJames King has joined the Australian real estate fund manager as director to support real estate investment strategies in its Sydney office. King will be responsible for capital raising, investor relations, and product development across the Altis platform. He joins Altis from Qualitas, where he was director, head of investor relations.

Ringley Group – The residential property consultancy firm has appointed Anthony Kingdon as a director to head up its operations in Wales. Kingdon will be focused on driving Ringley Group’s presence in Wales and will report directly to Mary-Anne Bowring, the company’s group managing director and founder. Kingdon joins Ringley Group from Xenia Estates, a specialist student and residential block management company, where he was operations director for more than two years. Prior to his role at Xenia Estates, Kingdon held the role of property manager at Scanlans Property Management, and has previously worked with national portfolios at Mainstay Residential.