ASR Real Assets, McGuireWoods, OIC, Dexus, DWS, Knight Frank, TA Digital, Pexapark, Vakt, Garbe Retail Real Estate, Momeni, Pluto Finance, Close Brothers, Shorenstein, Cushman & Wakefield
DWS – Scott Arden has been appointed managing director and head of Americas real estate specialists. He will lead a team of real estate sales specialists dedicated to working with clients across the Americas to deliver real estate solutions. Arden was most recently the head of North America distribution at Sentinel. Before that, he spent several years at Hodes Weill.
Dexus – Michael Sheffield has been appointed executive general manager of funds management, while Jason Howes is now executive general manager, fund capital and product development. Sheffield will be responsible for the performance and operations of Dexus’s existing A$39.7bn (€24bn) real estate and infrastructure funds platform. He is an experienced funds management professional, with more than 30 years of experience including 10 years in leadership roles at Dexus as fund manager of Dexus wholesale property fund and more recently as head of diversified and infrastructure funds. Howes will be responsible for the development and distribution of new funds products across the Dexus platform. He has more than 25 years of experience in origination, capital raising and investment management in debt and equity investments in a range of asset classes.
Pluto Finance — Frank Pennal has joined the firm as non-executive adviser. Pennal brings experience to Pluto from senior property finance and lending positions, most notably as CEO of Close Brothers Property Lending, a role he held for 19 years. Pennal will provide strategic guidance and advice to Pluto as it continues its growth trajectory across the UK and beyond.
ASR Real Assets – Almar Rietberg has been appointed head of client solutions. In this role, he will be responsible for providing services to pension funds, insurers, and charitable institutions in real assets such as real estate, infrastructure, forestry and agriculture. Additionally, Rietberg will take over the management team position from Jeroen Winkelman. Winkelman will continue to contribute his extensive experience to ASR Real Assets investment partners. Since 2018, Rietberg has been employed at Goldman Sachs Asset Management and its predecessor NN Investment Partners. As executive director, he was responsible for existing relationships and expanding the institutional client base in Benelux. Prior to that, from 2016 to 2018, Rietberg worked as director at BlackRock in the institutional clients team. From 2005 to 2016, he worked at Van Lanschot Kempen.
OIC – Jay McKenna has joined the North American infrastructure investment firm as managing director on the Infrastructure credit team and is based in Houston. McKenna is responsible for leading investments for the infrastructure credit platform. McKenna has nearly two decades of experience in traditional and clean-energy sectors and has held several executive roles including president and CEO of Occurrent Power, co-founder and CEO of Nacero and CFO of K Road Power. Carl Geagea has joined OIC as senior associate on the infrastructure credit team and is based in Houston. Most recently he served as chief of staff to the executive chair at Tellurian, a LNG development company. Previously, he worked at Chevron in various capacities including roles in operations, engineering and trading. Felipe Oliveira has joined OIC as senior associate on the infrastructure credit team and is based in Houston. Most recently Oliveira served as an investment associate on Pennybacker’s critical infrastructure team. He began his career as an investment banking analyst at BNP Paribas and Atlantico Capital Partners. Salome Saliashvili has taken on a senior associate role at OIC on the infrastructure equity team and is based in New York. Saliashvili most recently served as director of corporate development at Inspiration Mobility Group and has worked at Citi in the investment banking group. Chris Wang has joined OIC as associate, investment strategist, and is based in New York. Prior to OIC, Wang was an analyst in Macquarie Capital’s infrastructure and energy M&A group. Kelsey Haertling joined the OIC team as senior analyst on the finance team and is based in Houston. Prior to OIC, Haertling was an audit senior associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Matthew Levy, based in New York, has been promoted to senior associate on the OIC infrastructure growth team. Grayson Walker, based in Houston, was promoted to associate on the OIC finance team.
Cushman & Wakefield – Tom McDonnell has been appointed executive regional director to lead the firm’s Northwest Region, which includes Northern California, Oregon and Washington. Based in San Francisco, McDonnell will report to Victoria Malkin, president of Americas markets. In addition to leading the Northwest Region, McDonnell will also serve as the head of Americas office agency leasing. McDonnell joins Cushman & Wakefield from Shorenstein, where he served as national leasing director. Before his time at Shorenstein, McDonnell was with Cushman & Wakefield in San Francisco, specialising in tenant and landlord representation.
McGuireWoods – Phillip Coover has been appointed to lead the international law firm’s real estate initiatives in Chicago and the Midwest and enhance its capabilities across the US. Coover handles real estate transactions and financings and provides strategic guidance for developers, investors, syndicators and other industry clients. He moves to McGuireWoods from Ice Miller.
TA Digital – Ryan Day, has been appointed SVP of strategy and finance, bringing more than 20 years of experience in financial planning, real estate development, and network acquisitions, including key roles at Amazon Web Services and Microsoft. Chris Trotman has been appointed SVP of development and engineering, focusing on power systems and electrical engineering. He previously held senior roles at CloudHQ, Meta and Rivian. Steve Holland has been appointed SVP of operations, with more than 15 years of experience, having previously led the data centre solutions team at T5 Data Centers and as a principal in data centre solutions at JLL. Adam Black has been appointed SVP of design and construction, drawing on his extensive expertise in infrastructure and construction management after having previously served as distributed control system manager for the Mid-Atlantic region at Google and managing infrastructure construction special projects at Facebook.
Pexapark – Martin Fraenkel has joined the provider of renewable energy price intelligence, risk management, and market analytics as its first independent chair. Currently chair of Vakt, and former president of S&P Global Platts, Fraenkel brings over three decades of leadership experience in global energy markets, commodities, and investment banking.
Garbe Retail Real Estate – Jan Heidelmann has joined the management board, forming a leadership duo with Andreas Freier. Concurrently, Thomas Kallenbrunnen has stepped down as interim managing director to focus on his roles at Garbe Infrastructure and Garbe Capital & Strategy. In his new role as MD, Heidelmann will be responsible for capital markets, fund and real estate management, and the commercial division. Freier will focus on transaction management, business development, asset management, and project management. Heidelmann joins from Momeni Group, where he was MD. He previously held senior positions in international investment management at Freo Germany, PGIM Germany and Rockpoint Group.
Knight Frank – Craig Shute has been promoted to proprietary partner, and will join the group executive board on 1 April 2025. Shute was recently announced as CEO of Asia Pacific, having joined Knight Frank in 2023 to lead its Greater China business following a 25-year international real estate career.
Cowen+Partners – Mike Judd is joining as an associate director, leading living-sector projects alongside residential-led regeneration schemes. Having joined from Hawkins\Brown, Judd will be delivering services for Cowen+Partners clients including Related Argent at Brent Cross. Other Cowen+Partners team appointments include Yee Wei Gan and Kinga Ernt, both as architects. Gan has five years’ experience working on large-scale residential and masterplan projects across London, having joined from Patel Taylor Architects. Ernt will be working on high-rise residential projects at Cowen+Partners, with experience gained at previous practices, GRID Architects and HKR Architects. Abigail Yeboah and Meelad Fairs have also joined Cowen+Partners as architectural assistants. Yeboah joins from Hale Brown Architects where she focused on commercial projects. Fairs has seven years of experience as an architectural assistant on domestic, residential and commercial projects.
