People moves: Dietrich joins Aviva Investors real assets research team

ESR, ACORE Capital, Schroders, Union Real Estate, CTP, HB Reavis, IFM Investors, BlackRock, Precede Capital Partners, LaSalle, CBRE IM, Aviva Investors, Patrizia, Harrison Street, EY, GMH Communities, Blue Vista Capital Management

Aviva Investors – Viktor Dietrich has been appointed research director and Rebecca Crocker as research analyst. Both appointees will report directly to David Hedalen, head of real assets research at Aviva Investors, as part of a seven-person team. Dietrich joins Aviva Investors from Patrizia where he worked as an equity analyst in its listed infrastructure team. He has seven years of industry experience, having started his career at Timbercreek Asset Management in Zurich as part of its global real estate securities team, where he focused on UK and European real estate stocks. He returns to Aviva Investors following two years spent in the firm’s global REIT team between 2019 and 2021. Crocker joins Aviva Investors from American Express, having spent the past six months as a senior financial analyst focused on investment optimisation. Prior to this, she spent three years as a DC [defined contribution] investment analyst at Hymans Robertson.

Harrison Street – Alexis Gisselbrecht has been appointed managing director, portfolio management. Based in London, Gisselbrecht will lead the portfolio management function in Europe and oversee the performance of Harrison Street’s European investment vehicles. Gisselbrecht has over two decades of finance and real estate investment experience in pan-European strategies across the risk spectrum. He previously served as a senior real assets fund manager at AXA IM Alts, where he was responsible for pan-European value-add funds. Gisselbrecht also held similar roles at Patrizia and within BlackRock’s real assets group. William Fagan joins Harrison Street as MD and head of the firm’s newly opened Luxembourg office. Fagan joins from HSBC’s Luxembourg investment management company, and will be responsible for expanding Harrison Street’s presence and relationships with external partners and service providers. Viviana Raymond joins from EY as director in tax with a focus on providing advice on tax at the fund and portfolio levels. Raymond will also support the development and operations of the recently opened Harrison Street office in Luxembourg.

ESR – Josh Daitch has been promoted to group CIO and Matthew Lawson to group COO. Daitch will oversee fund management, capital raising, research and analytics, and new product creation. Daitch was previously ESR group head of capital and new economy fund management. He joined ESR in 2018. Lawson, currently the CFO at ESR Australia, will assume the role of group COO. In this newly created role, Lawson will support the group co-CEOs and work with the ESR business unit leadership on growth initiatives and performance across the group. Lawson joined ESR in 2020.

IFM Investors – Armit Bhambra has been appointed head of client solutions EMEA. Based in London, Bhambra will spearhead IFM’s client solutions business in EMEA, reporting to the recently appointed head of global client solutions, John Gee-Grant. Bhambra began his career at KPMG, working with large institutional investors. He went on to hold senior roles at BlackRock, including building BlackRock’s asset owner business for iShares in the UK and driving the initiative across EMEA. More recently, Bhambra was the head of BlackRock’s UK corporate pensions business.

Precede Capital Partners – Michael Berditchewsky and Lukas Kielius have joined the real estate development lending platform’s credit team as associate director and associate, respectively. Berditchewsky joins Precede Capital from LaSalle Investment Management, where he most recently served as VP in the debt investments team. Prior to LaSalle, he worked for pan-European investment and asset manager Aerium. Kielius joins from CBRE Investment Management, where he worked as a senior investment analyst, EMEA credit strategies. Before that, Kielius was part of the real estate debt finance team at HSBC.

GMH Communities – Nick Lee has been appointed chief acquisitions officer. Lee will oversee the strategic acquisitions of residential properties in the US, including those within the student housing and life sciences sectors. Prior to his new role, Lee spent six years at Blue Vista Capital Management where he most recently served as SVP. He also spent time with Deloitte and Inland Private Capital Corporation. Rand Ginsburg was promoted on 1 January to COO. Ginsburg has been with the company for over 22 years. He will focus on refining operations across GMH’s commercial real estate verticals to expand ancillary revenues.

ACORE Capital – Andrew Terry, former head of insurance at Schroders, has joined the US commercial real estate debt fund manager as MD. In this role, Terry will focus on expanding ACORE’s relationships in the insurance industry. He will report to Michael Romo, senior MD and head of capital raising. Prior to Schroders, Terry held capital raising and relationship management positions in the institutional client group at AllianceBernstein and the financial institutions group at BlackRock. He previously worked as an insurance equity analyst at Macquarie/Fox-Pitt Kelton and as a consultant for Oliver Wyman.

Union Real Estate – VP of accounting and finance Michele DeMarco takes the helm as president of Union Real Estate, while longtime president Jan Levinson remains president of related real estate holding companies. DeMarco started her real estate career at Kravco in Pennsylvania in 1989 before relocating to Pittsburgh in 1992. She has worked with Union Real Estate for over 30 years. Levinson has worked at Union Real Estate for over 40 years, coordinating the growth of the company’s real estate holdings portfolio. He will remain with Union Real Estate as the broker of record, SVP and chairman of the board, continuing to provide leadership and insight for the executive team of the company.

CTP – The European industrial and logistics real estate firm has appointed Peter Čerešník as COO. Čerešník joins CTP from international office developer HB Reavis in Slovakia, where he served on a group level in the executive management team and the board of directors. He will have responsibility for overall growth, realising the company’s construction GLA and occupancy targets, developing its energy business and further progressing procurement, business development and HR strategy. Čerešník brings over 20 years of experience in Central and Eastern European markets, previously leading country teams at Microsoft, IT distributor Alef Nula, and software development companies exe a.s. and SAS Institute.