Knight Frank, Quadrant, AlphaReal, Bidwells, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, JLL, AXA IM Alts, GridStor, NW Natural, Roofstock, OMERS, CPP Investments, Warburg Pincus, GSAM
OMERS – Michael Hill has been appointed executive vice-president and global head of infrastructure at OMERS. Hill takes up his new post on 5 September and will be based in New York. He will report to CIO Ralph Berg. Hill joins OMERS from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board where most recently he was the Americas head of sustainable energies, focused on direct private equity investments across the energy sector. He was also the head of the firm’s New York office. Previously, Hill spent over 25 years in investment banking, working across asset classes in various roles at Nomura Securities, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley. He has worked globally and been based out of New York, London and Toronto.
Warburg Pincus – Takashi Murata, a former senior Goldman Sachs executive, will join Warburg Pincus as co-head of Asia real estate early next year. He will also lead the firm’s expansion into the Japanese private equity and real estate market. Murata was previously co-head of Asia-Pacific private investing and global co-head of real estate at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and sat on various committees including its asset management real estate investment committee. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs in 1988, Murata worked at Secured Capital Corp in Los Angeles and Tokyo. Ellen Ng, currently Goldman Sachs’s head of China real estate, has been promoted to co-head Asia Real Estate, following the recent elevation of Jeffrey Perlman to the role of president of the New York firm. Ng has played a key role in growing Warburg Pincus’s real estate activities in Asia over the past 18 years.
JLL – Paul Stepan has been appointed head of sustainability consulting for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In this newly created role, Stepan will be responsible for leading the growth and management of JLL’s sustainability consulting business in EMEA and supporting clients on their decarbonisation journeys. Previously, Stepan served as JLL’s client sustainability solutions lead for investor and occupier clients in EMEA. Before joining JLL, Stepan served as director for sustainability solutions for ENGIE Impact where he focused on designing and implementing sustainability strategies. He was also head of policy, strategy, and compliance at energy management business Verco.
Quadrant – The UK real estate asset management and development company has appointed Alice Vaughan as associate partner. Vaughan will play a key role in supporting Quadrant’s asset management team with its out-of-town retail real estate. Vaughan joins from Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield where she was responsible for leasing deals across the company’s UK portfolio, commercialising vacant spaces and managing occupier relationships.
AXA IM Alts – Philippe Grasser has been promoted to head of European transactions. Based in Frankfurt, Grasser will oversee the sourcing, selection and execution of AXA IM Alts’ European acquisitions. As part of his new role, Grasser will contribute to the investment strategies for AXA IM Alts and its clients and will be a member of its investment committee. Grasser joined AXA IM Alts in 2021. While remaining a managing director in the German business, many of Grasser’s responsibilities for German activities will pass to Ulf Bachmann who will become CEO for Germany, alongside his current role of chief transformation officer real estate. Bachmann joined the business in 2018. In addition to his current responsibilities, Bachmann will be responsible for overseeing the overall operation of the Alts business in Germany. Emilie Jaskula has been appointed to the newly created role of global head of offices in the asset management team. Jaskula has been at AXA IM Alts for almost 12 years, most recently as head of asset management for France. She will be responsible for driving the firm’s global offices strategy, overseeing the active asset management of AXA IM Alts European offices portfolio.
GridStor – The Goldman Sachs Asset Management-backed developer and operator of grid-scale battery energy storage systems has appointed Frank Burkhartsmeyer as CFO. Burkhartsmeyer was most recently executive vice-president of strategy and business development and CFO at NW Natural, a natural gas distributor. Prior to his role at NW Natural, Burkhartsmeyer served as president and CEO at Avangrid Renewables. He also served as managing director of corporate strategy at ScottishPower and treasury director at PacifiCorp.
AlphaReal – The specialist manager of secure income real assets has appointed Mark Futyan as a senior adviser and independent chair of its diversified renewables income fund. Futyan is currently a non-executive director on the boards of Anesco and Origami Energy. He was CEO at Anesco until January 2023 where he oversaw the development and construction of over 500MW of solar PV and energy-storage projects. Before that, he held a series of executive roles at Centrica.
Bidwells – Mark Callender has been appointed research partner. In his new role, Callender will focus on the commercial markets across the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, including driving Bidwells’s research on the region’s science and technology clusters. Callender joins from Schroders, where he was head of real estate research. Prior to joining Schroders in 2006, Callender was the research director for the Investment Property Databank Index, where he was responsible for its European indices. Before that, he was the chief economist at the Housebuilders Federation.
Knight Frank – James Hodgetts has joined as partner in the occupier strategy and solutions department, responsible for the Middle East and Africa region. Prior to joining Knight Frank, he served as a director at a professional services firm specialising in commercial real estate and investment management.
Roofstock – The real estate services and investment platform has appointed Justin Yagerman as its new head of capital markets and Paul Briggs as its new head of research and investment strategies. Prior to joining Roofstock, Yagerman served as head of business development at Invesco Private Capital. Before Roofstock, Briggs served most recently as managing director, head of US research at BentallGreenOak.
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