KGAL, Interhyp Group, Pioneer Point Partners, Plenium Partners, Fiera Capital, Cushman & Wakefield, EY, Strategic Value Partners, Davidson Kempner, LaSalle Investment Management, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, CBRE

LaSalle Investment Management – Brad Gries has been promoted to global CEO, and Tim Kessler to president. Current global CEO Mark Gabbay will become executive chairman. Gabbay’s 15-year tenure with LaSalle began in 2010 as CIO for Asia Pacific. He took on the additional role of CEO of the region in 2015 before being named global CEO in 2021. Gries will assume the role of global CEO and continue as head of the Americas. Gries is based in Chicago and has been a member of LaSalle’s global management committee since 2021. Kessler, also based in Chicago, has been promoted to president of LaSalle, in addition to his current role as global COO. He has been a member of LaSalle’s global management committee since 2018. Kessler will report to Gries and continue to work closely with him in developing and executing LaSalle’s global strategy.

Unibail-Rodamco-WestfieldKathleen Verelst has been appointed chief investment officer and a member of the management board. Taking on the role previously held by CEO-elect Vincent Rouget, Verelst will be responsible for implementing the group’s capital allocation framework. Verelst was most recently senior adviser, investment and divestment, for URW’s management and supervisory boards. She joined URW in 2021 after 22 years at Morgan Stanley in London, where she was a managing director and a senior adviser, working in the real estate investment banking, commercial real estate lending and M&A restructuring departments. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Verelst had been a lawyer for four years in New York at Shearman & Sterling and Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton.

KGAL — Martin Schmuck has been appointed chief financial officer, succeeding Thomas Schröer, who will retire at the end of 2026. Schmuck, who was most recently managing director of finance at Interhyp Group, will officially take over the CFO position in January 2026. In this role, he will oversee all financial matters for the KGAL, including controlling, finance, fund accounting and taxes, as well as audit, compliance and corporate services. The transition will be supported by Schröer, who will gradually hand over his duties and remain responsible for risk and fund controlling as a managing director of KGAL Investment Management until his official departure. Schmuck joins KGAL after spending over five years at Interhyp Group. He previously served as head of controlling for nearly seven years at Krones and also worked at the strategy consultancy Oliver Wyman.

Pioneer Point PartnersSebastian Miller has been promoted to partner. Miller joined the firm in 2014 and has since been instrumental in the management of several portfolio companies including Nature Energy, Start Campus and Seras. Miguel Arbizu, Jemima Atkins, Luca Boschetti and Julius McGillivray have been promoted to principal, reflecting their significant contributions to the firm. Emma Young has been promoted from her role as IR & ESG associate to ESG manager, to work solely on ESG initiatives. Young joined the firm in 2019 and has driven the implementation of Pioneer’s sustainability and impact framework. Mafalda Perdigão, previously with Goldman Sachs and British International Investment, and Pedro Gamero Laguens from Plenium Partners, have both joined the investment team. Daisy Macnab has joined the firm as a manager within the investor relations team, moving from Fiera Capital.

Strategic Value PartnersAndrew Shore has been appointed managing director, focused on real estate investment activities across North America. Most recently, Shore was a managing director at Davidson Kempner on the US real estate team. He was previously a principal in the Ares US real estate equity team.

CBRESandro Höselbarth has been appointed managing director, head of valuation and advisory services Germany. In this position, Höselbarth will assume overall responsibility for commercial and residential valuations in Germany. With more than 25 years of experience in the real estate industry – including around 18 years at CBRE – Höselbarth brings extensive expertise and long-standing leadership experience. Since 2008, he has been a valued leader in the company and has built up a residential valuation business.   

Cushman & WakefieldÁlvaro Alonso has been appointed head of the living and corporate finance division in Spain. With more than 20 years of experience, Alonso brings expertise in financial and strategic advisory services in the real estate sector, specialising in M&A transactions, direct investment, financing and special situations. He joins as an international partner and member of the board in Spain. Alonso joins from EY, where he was a partner in the strategy and transactions area. Before joining EY, he had a long career at Colliers International, where his last position was managing partner of corporate finance and a member of the management committee for Spain.  

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