PGIM Real Estate, Harrison Street, Harrison Street, LaSalle, Willis Towers Watson, Marquette Associates, Urban Edge Properties, Fortress Investment, Kadens Capital, Schroders Capital, Columbia Threadneedle Investments, CTP, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Trammell Crow Company, Nuveen, DRC Savills IM, Pioneer Group, CPP Investments, LaSalle, Cushman & Wakefield, BentallGreenOak, Bidwells, Clarion Partners Europe, Knight Frank

DRC Savills IM – Steve Willingham has been hired as head of Asia at DRC Savills IM. Based in Hong Kong, Willingham will report to Dale Lattanzio, managing partner at DRC Savills IM. Willingham officially joins the firm in November. With over 30 years of experience in real estate, Willingham joins DRC Savills IM from HSBC, where he was most recently the global head of real estate finance, based in Hong Kong. Prior to this, he held various senior roles in Infrastructure and real estate finance in London for HSBC. Willingham has also previously worked in senior executive and portfolio management roles at leading real estate and investment management firms. 

Macquarie Asset Management – Irina Luckey has been appointed as a managing director to support Macquarie’s infrastructure secondaries business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. From London, Luckey will help harness Macquarie’s 28 years of investment leadership in infrastructure to execute a robust pipeline of investment opportunities sourced through the firm’s longstanding relationships with infrastructure managers and investors. Luckey is re-joining Macquarie following a seven-year career at Canada Pension Plan Investments where she supported its investment and asset management activities in the infrastructure sector. Luckey began her career at Macquarie Group, having previously worked in the asset management arm assessing investment opportunities across the European transport infrastructure and energy sectors.

PGIM Real Estate – Juergen Helm joins the firm as lead originator responsible for helping grow the European debt platform by developing new business and loan originations across key European markets. Helm is based in Frankfurt. In London, Laura Denenga has been appointed as an originator to further drive the debt platform’s European origination efforts. Denenga is responsible for sourcing and closing senior and whole loans, as well as mezzanine and preferred equity funding. Helm and Denenga will support the European team’s efforts in underwriting and execution of European debt transactions, whilst reinforcing PGIM Real Estate’s local sourcing capability. Helm joins from HSBC Germany, where he was head of real estate, Germany, focussing on the financing of large real estate transactions within the country and continental Europe. Helm has more 30 years of experience, with prior roles at SEB, HypoVereinsbank and Dresdner Bank. Denenga joins from Allianz Real Estate, where she was responsible for the origination and execution of senior commercial real estate loans across Europe. Prior to this, Denenga held roles at Maslow Capital and Quadrant Real Estate Advisors.

Harrison Street – Chris Brown, Paul Marchese, and Anthony Potenza have joined the firm’s investor relations team. Potenza joins as a director and brings more than 17 years of fundraising, business development and investor relations experience. Prior to joining Harrison Street, Potenza was a VP and client executive for LaSalle Investment Management, where he was responsible for building and maintaining capital relationships across private equity, private debt, and other alternative strategies with institutional clients primarily on the East Coast. Prior to joining Lasalle, Potenza worked as an investment consultant in the global manager research group for Willis Towers Watson Investment Services. Marchese also joins as director and brings more than 18 years of investment experience to Harrison Street. He was most recently a VP at Marquette Associates, where he led the construction and management of numerous client portfolios. Brown will join as a VP and brings more than eight years of fundraising and investor relations experience to Harrison Street. Most recently, he served as director of capital raising and investor relations at Cityview.

Clarion Partners Europe – The logistics and industrial real estate investment fund manager has appointed Bruno Berretta to the newly created role of VP, head of research – European markets. Based in London, Bruno will be responsible for analysing data and trends impacting the European logistics markets, and creating thematic-based investment strategies in order to support Clarion Partners Europe with capital deployment and fundraising activities. He joins Clarion Partners Europe from Cushman & Wakefield, where he was an associate director covering the UK industrial and retail sectors. Prior to that he was a Senior Analyst at Colliers, focused on the pan-EMEA logistics market. 

BentallGreenOak – Jonathan Ross has been appointed managing director to lead new growth areas. In a dual role, Ross has been appointed head of insurance solutions and head of Israel coverage. He will be located in the Boston office but will spend substantial time in the New York office, as well as in Tel Aviv. BGO insurance solutions is a newly created initiative to tailor BGO real estate investment solutions for insurance companies globally which face unique regulatory as well as asset-liability management-related challenges. Ross will lead a team charged with delivering strategies specific to the unique needs of the insurance industry through the development of investment solutions with increased regulatory capital efficiency that are accretive to the industry’s asset-liability management goals. As head of Israel coverage in the capital raising group, Ross will leverage his extensive institutional and family office relationships to bring BGO’s global offerings to the Israeli market and grow the BGO investor base in this market. Ross joined BGO from Migdal Insurance, Israel’s largest insurance company and pension manager where he was the head of international real estate. Before that Ross was head of investments for a real estate investment house for HNW investors. Prior to the GFC, he spent his career in the capital markets initially as an architect of the TASE’s traded options market, and then trading and structuring derivatives, structured products and securitisation.

Knight Frank Investment Management – The specialist real estate investment management business has appointed Ian Wilson partner to grow the firm’s residential investment management business. Wilson’s initial focus will be on the UK with a longer-term ambition to develop a European residential business. Xaviere Roudeix-Crouan has been appointed head of research and forecasting, and Chantal Beaudoin, who joins as head of ESG. Wilson joins from CBRE Investment Management where he drove the development of the firm’s residential investment expertise. He moved from residential valuations into residential fund management in 2006, joining ING REIM to take over ING’s Residential Fund. He also served as portfolio manager of the CBRE UK Affordable Housing Fund. Roudeix-Crouan joins from Redevco, where she was responsible for providing a strategic framework for investment management operations. Beaudoin was previously senior sustainability manager at Lamington Group.

Harworth Group – The regenerator of land and property for sustainable development and investment has appointed Kate Morris-Bates to the newly created role of group resources and transformation director. Morris-Bates will report to Lynda Shillaw, chief executive, and will be a member of Harworth’s Group leadership committee. In her role, Morris-Bates will have responsibility for Harworth’s HR, business support, workplace development and internal communications functions. Morris-Bates has spent the past six years running her own businesses within the wellbeing, learning and development, and executive development sectors. Prior to this, she spent almost 20 years working in and leading corporate teams in the facilities management and risk management space, latterly at the Co-operative Group, where she was responsible for several key transformation programmes across its estates business. 

Schroders Capital – Peter Lowe joined the real estate team as a senior fund manager in the UK, responsible for the £4bn Scottish Widows funds. In this newly-created role based in London, Lowe is responsible for fund performance and strategy, reporting to Nick Montgomery, head of UK investment. Lowe joins from Columbia Threadneedle Investments, where he was fund manager responsible for the Columbia Threadneedle Property Trust (formerly BMO Real Estate Investments). He also managed a SFDR Article 9 aligned fund targeting affordable single and multi-family residential assets across the UK. Prior to BMO, Lowe was a fund manager at DTZ Investment Management working on mandates including Pearl Assurance Trust, GE CIF Trustees and University Superannuation Scheme.

Urban Edge Properties – The NYSE-listed REIT has named Andrea Drazin chief accounting officer. Drazin will succeed Jennifer Holmes, who will step down to pursue a new opportunity as the chief financial officer of a private residential developer. Drazin, who joined Urban Edge in March 2015, currently serves as VP, corporate controller responsible for SEC reporting, corporate accounting and treasury management. Prior to joining Urban Edge in 2015, Drazin worked in the audit practice for five years at Deloitte & Touche specialising in real estate. Etan Bluman has been promoted to senior VP, finance and investor relations. Bluman joined Urban Edge in 2017 as tax director and has worked in various capacities at the company including asset management, transactional structuring and debt financings. Prior to joining Urban Edge, Bluman worked as a tax manager in the real estate market group at EY.

Kadens Capital – Lars Oldenburg has joined the European real estate private equity firm’s investment team as principal. Before joining Kadens, Oldenburg served as VP for investments at Fortress Investment in London. His earlier career included extensive experience at Madison International Realty in New York and Frankfurt.

CTP – Maarten Otte has been appointed as head of investor relations. He joins from Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, where he was group director of investor relations. He joined Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield in 2016. 

Trammell Crow Company – Sean Gray has been appointed as general counsel for its commercial development business in Europe. Gray will be responsible for overseeing all legal and risk management aspects for TCC’s growing European commercial real estate team, which currently consists of industrial and logistics professionals in offices in the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. Gray joins from Nuveen, where he was associate general counsel and VP, real assets, for the firm’s Europe and Asia Pacific regions. Previously, Gray worked for Eversheds Sutherland, where he also carried out secondments with Lendlease and with Blackstone on its European property assets, including its flexible workspace provider The Office Group. At TCC, Gray will report to Lisa Sher, general counsel. Having launched in Europe in 2021, the US-based giant now has three sites in the UK, as well as schemes in Germany, Spain and the Czech Republic.

LaSalle – Tom Rose, LaSalle’s current head of UK relative returns, will succeed Julian Agnew as head of custom accounts, Europe, effective from 1 December. Rose has been a key member of Agnew’s team for more than 20 years, with responsibility for client portfolios with relative return investment strategies within the UK. In his new role, Rose will report to Philip La Pierre, head of Europe at LaSalle, and will continue to shape and position client portfolios, ensuring competitive investment performance in the context of individual client risk-return requirements. Rose will also become a member of LaSalle’s European management board, where he will lead custom accounts’ contribution to LaSalle’s growing and integrated investor product mix across Europe. 

Pioneer Group – The UK operator and developer of lab space, has appointed Harry Pickering as portfolio director and UK head of investment. Pickering, who joins from Schroders, where he was responsible for the strategy and business plan execution for a balanced UK real estate fund, will be responsible for spearheading Pioneer Group’s continued expansion. Pioneer Group was formed last year by merging existing businesses BioCity and Trinity Investment Management’s science and technology-focused operational business Knowledge Factory.

Cushman & Wakefield – The real estate services firm has appointed David Gingell as an international partner in its EMEA equity, debt and structured finance team. He will be responsible for leading financing activity in the UK and Ireland as well as focusing on significant European mandates. Gingell joins from PGIM Real Estate where he spent 10 years across London, Chicago and Frankfurt offices. His latest role was head of European senior debt, based in Frankfurt. He co-founded the European arm of the US commercial real estate lender in London and Frankfurt.

Bidwells – Emily Slupek has joined the UK property consultant as partner from project management firm Buro Four, where she led its S&T division. Slupek works with developers, funders and tenants to deliver major science developments at science parks in both Oxford and Cambridge. She joins alongside Oxford agent Duncan May who becomes a partner after more than ten years helping lead VSL’s Oxford team, strengthening a Bidwells agency team already acting on a number of the key science and tech parks across the region including the Harwell Campus.

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