Knight Frank, Frasers Property UK, Greystone, Hines, Cushman & Wakefield, MORhomes, Precede Capital Partners, Green Street, Reed Smith, CapitaLand Development, Morrison & Co
Greystone – The US commercial real estate finance firm has hired Mike Casavant as a managing director, Ryan Carlin as a director, and JP Chisholm as a director to its New York-based Greystone Commercial Capital team. Casavant joins as a MD and head of credit and underwriting. Prior to Greystone, Casavant was head of underwriting for real estate structured finance at Bank of America Securities. His previous experience includes serving as co-head of underwriting at Ladder Capital Finance, and SVP at Lehman Brothers. Carlin joins as a director of capital markets and syndications. Carlin has recently served as VP of originations at Amherst Capital Management and earlier served as VP for Cantor Fitzgerald’s CMBS platform. Chisholm joins as a director of originations, with a focus on agency production, FHA, CMBS, and balance sheet production. Previously, Chisholm served as COO of Subsea Environmental Services. He also served as investment officer for the Philips Academy (Andover) Endowment and was a research fellow at the Library of Congress. Casavant, Carlin and Chisholm report to Jeffrey Lavine, senior managing director and COO for Greystone Commercial Capital.
Precede Capital Partners – The real estate development lending platform has appointed Leon Johnson as associate director, credit, and Sonali Mullick as senior associate, legal. Johnson will report directly to David Jerrard, Precede Capital’s chief credit officer, while Mullick will report to Karen Dunstan, the firm’s co-founder and general counsel. Johnson joins Precede Capital from the research and advisory firm, Green Street, where he began as a senior associate and was promoted to VP. He previously worked as an analyst at JP Morgan Asset Management. Mullick joins from Reed Smith, where she served as a legal consultant for structured finance. Her previous roles include senior debt finance paralegal at Greenberg Traurig, UK development legal advisor at Campus Living Villages and senior paralegal at Hayfin Capital Management.
Hines – Doug Holte has been appointed CEO of EXP, the manager’s newly created global business unit designed to address the disruptive changes in the built environment. Holte, was a senior partner in Hines west region from 1987 to 2009 and has returned to Hines after a career at the Irvine Company, and his own innovation firm AWI. EXP consists of two business groups: Global ESG and the Global Venture Lab led by Peter Epping and Kathryn Scheckel respectively.
CapitaLand Development – Jonathan Yap will succeed Jason Leow as CEO from June, when Jason Leow retires. Leow has been with CapitaLand for almost three decades and became the firm’s first CEO on its establishment in September 2021. Yap is currently CEO of listed funds at CapitaLand Investment. He joined CapitaLand Group through the CapitaLand and Ascendas-Singbridge combination in 2019. At the time, Yap was COO and group CFO of Ascendas-Singbridge. Prior to his current appointment, Yap was president of CapitaLand Financial. Lee Chee Koon, group CEO of CapitaLand Investment, will take over from Yap to oversee the group’s REITs platform directly.
Cushman & Wakefield – The global real estate services firm has appointed Annelou de Groot as its incoming head of Netherlands. She will succeed Jeroen Lokerse who is moving to a global role as head of product innovation after 10 years leading the Dutch business. De Groot is joining from flexible workplace provider IWG. During her time with IWG she has held several senior strategic leadership roles, most recently as director of partnership growth for southern and western Europe. Prior to this she spent eight years leading commercial and residential real estate agency Dynamis. In his new role, Lokerse will partner with the firm’s technology and data solutions and investment teams to bring forward value-adding, scalable new products that enable Cushman & Wakefield to do more for its clients, enhancing productivity and insight and unlocking new revenue opportunities.
Morrison & Co – Geraldine Buckingham has been appointed a non-executive director on the board. Buckingham spent seven years at BlackRock, where her most recent executive role was as chair of Asia-Pacific. Immediately following this role, she acted as senior adviser to Larry Fink, BlackRock’s chairman and CEO, until she retired at the end of 2021. She previously held roles including global head of corporate strategy at BlackRock and a partner with McKinsey & Company’s financial services practice based in New York. Buckingham also holds current positions as an independent non-executive director at HSBC Holdings and Brunswick Group Partnership. She is also a member of the advisory board of Climate works Australia.
The PRS REIT – The real estate investment trust that invests in new build, single-family homes for the private rented sector has appointed Geeta Nanda as senior independent director of the board. Nanda joined the board as a non-executive director of the company in March 2021. She is CEO of Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing Association, having previously led its formation in 2017 with the merger of Metropolitan Housing Trust and Thames Valley Housing Association, where she was CEO. She also has significant experience of private rented sector, having established Fizzy Living, the London private rented sector subsidiary of Thames Valley Housing Association in 2012.
MORhomes – The financial borrowing vehicle for UK housing associations has appointed Andrew Morton CEO to succeed Patrick Symington. Morton joined MORhomes in March 2020 as deputy chief axecutive and CFO. Morton has many years’ banking experience at Barclays as well as a variety of other commercial and non-executive roles. Symington has been the CEO of MORhomes since its formation in 2018 and is now retiring from executive roles, after a long career of which over 30 years has been in the housing sector.
Knight Frank – Amira Hashemi has been appointed UK ESG lead property and asset management. Hashemi joins from a client-side role as UK ESG lead at Frasers Property UK. Hashemi will be working closely with the Knight Frank Property and asset management and energy and sustainability departments. She has led the ESG activities for Frasers Property UK for the past 4 years and prior to this spent 4 years with Frasers Property Australia. In her newly created role, Hashemi will lead upon ESG strategy and implementation across Knight Frank’s asset management, property management and facilities management businesses across the UK.
