GreenWood Resources, Hancock Natural Resource, Octopus Real Estate, Lothbury Investment Management, Greenman Partners, Element Capital, Amber Infrastructure, Rubicon Capital Advisors, Savills IM, BlackRock, Nuveen Real Estate, Lendlease, Seddons, DWS Real Estate, Union Investment, L&G, Tilhill, Conygar Investment, Astarte Capital Partners, Delancey, Crown Resorts, Atrato Group, TopHat, Patrizia, Ringley Group, Allianz Real Estate, IQHQ, Vanir Construction Management
Legal & General Capital – Legal & General’s alternative asset platform has appointed John Alker as its new head of sustainability. Alker Joins the business on 9 August, from the UK Green Building Council where he is director of policy and places, having joined shortly after its launch in 2007. Alker has also served as board director for the World Green Building Council. Prior to joining UKGBC, Alker worked on sustainable homes and carbon trading for the environmental charity WWF-UK, has worked as a researcher in the House of Commons, and in commercial public affairs. He is on the Board of the Quality of Life Foundation.
Nuveen Real Estate – The investment manager has appointed William Bateman as head of European housing, alongside four residential specialists across EMEA and APAC. Bateman is tasked with overseeing the existing portfolio, as well as expanding the firm’s residential footprint. He was previously at Round Hill Capital where he spent the last five years as a managing director responsible for housing strategies and strategic initiatives. Bateman joined Nuveen Real Estate at the end of last year. Nuveen most recently appointed Limor Shklaz, who has joined as a director from Invesco and will be focusing on investment and design, and Alisha Chauhan who has joined from Greystar as a director focusing on asset management. Both will be based in London. Ben Taylor has been appointed director of Asia Pacific housing based in Sydney, and Naofumi Une who has joined the housing team in Japan as transactions manager. Taylor will build upon Nuveen’s existing housing strategy in Australia, and support the exploration of new opportunities in the region, whilst Une will build upon Nuveen’s Tokyo multifamily partnership under Shu Watanabe who is responsible for Nuveen’s housing strategy in Japan.
Patrizia – Alastair Allan has joined as a senior associate, while Tommy Village will work as an analyst, within Patrizia’a UK and Ireland real estate development team. Allan joins from TopHat, where he worked as a senior development manager for three years. Prior to this he spent three years in development management at Berkeley Group. Alongside the management of existing developments, in his new role, Allan will be responsible for new acquisitions, with a focus on residential assets, which will aid the expansion of Patrizia’s portfolio. Prior to joining Patrizia, Village worked as a development manager at Candour. He also brings investment management and analyst experience from his time at Commercial Estates Group. In his new role at Patrizia, Village will be responsible for underwriting new and existing development opportunities.
Allianz Real Estate – Daisuke Noguchi has been appointed head of acquisitions for Japan and Dean Kwon as the head of finance for the region. Noguchi, based in Tokyo, brings with him over 25 years of experience in the real estate industry in Japan. Based in Singapore, Dean is a finance professional with over 19 years of experience in financial services firms across APAC and US.
Amber Infrastructure – Sonia McMillan has joined the international infrastructure investment firm’s North American investment origination team. McMillan joins Amber’s North America operations in New York. She has extensive infrastructure transaction and legal experience as a former managing director and general counsel for Rubicon Capital Advisors and director of infrastructure at InfraRed Capital Partners.
Ringley Group – The residential property consultant has appointed Ian Barber managing director to its build-to-rent division. Barber will help lead Life by Ringley, which advises investors and operators across the whole lifecycle of a BTR asset.
Astarte Capital Partners – The real assets-focused investment firm has appointed Tingting Peng investor relations and business development director. Peng was previously head of investor relations and business development at ESO Capital. Prior to this, She was principal and COO at real asset partners. She was previously based in Hong Kong for over a decade, where she worked in real estate development and investment spanning Asia and the US. She began her career as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and subsequently worked as a hedge fund analyst at Fortress Investment Group.
Atrato Group – The alternative asset management and advisory group has appointed Gurpreet Gujral as renewable energy managing director and Francisca Wiggins as director, renewable energy. Gujral was most recently at Macquarie, where he was a senior VP in the Green Investment Group. Prior to joining Macquarie, Gujral worked in equity research at N+1 Singer. Wiggins spent over 10 years at Atlantis, where she was the commercial director. At Atlantis, Wiggins was on the board of MeyGen, the project company responsible for delivering the world’s largest planned tidal energy project.
NREP – The real estate investor has hired Jan Vapaavuori, the departing mayor of Helsinki, as senior advisor for Urban Development from August. Vapaavuori will join NREP to further strengthen the company’s urban development efforts. He’s been mayor of Helsinki since 2017. Vapaavuori will join the company in August in the part-time role. He will work across all NREP’s geographies to facilitate new solutions to the most pressing urban challenges, including infrastructure challenges and climate crisis. Vapaavuori’s previous experience includes terms as minister of housing and urban planning and minister of economic affairs in the Finnish government, as well as the VP in the European Investment Bank.
Octopus Real Estate – The specialist UK real estate lender and investor has appointed Michael Toft as senior fund manager. Toft will be taking a senior role in the care home team and will be responsible for the day-to-day management of the team. He joins from Lothbury Investment Management, where he spent over a decade as an executive director and senior fund manager, managing institutional real estate funds. Toft will become co-head of the Octopus Healthcare Fund. He is a member of The Association of Real Estate Funds’ ESG and impact investing committee.
Crown Resorts – The listed Australian resort group has appointed Steve McCann, currently group CEO of Lendlease, CEO and managing director. McCann has been CEO of Lendlease for more than a decade. To ensure a seamless transition, Helen Coonan will continue to perform her executive responsibilities as interim executive chairman of Crown Resorts until McCann has received the necessary approvals to assume his position. Before joining Lendlease in 2005, McCann, a trained lawyer, worked in senior leadership roles at ABN AMRO and Bankers Trust.
YIT — Ilkka Tomperi, investment director, head of real estate at Finnish mutual pension insurance company Varma, announced he is leaving the pension provider for a new job. Tomperi is going to Finnish urban developer YIT, having been appointed executive vice president of the company’s partnership properties segment and a member of its group management team, he revealed in a post on LinkedIn. Tomperi has worked at Varma - one of the two largest pension insurers in Finland’s earnings-related pension system - for eight years heading up the firm’s property operation. YIT said he would start work there at the beginning of August.
Union Investment Institutional Property – Maximilian Brauers has been appointed to the board of managing directors from 1 July. In his new role, Brauers will be in charge of real estate sales for German and international key accounts within Union Investment’s institutional business. His most recent position was that of head of client relations real estate Germany at DWS Real Estate. Brauers began to build up his real estate expertise during the first stages of his professional career, at Jones Lang Lasalle and UBS Real Estate KAG. Before joining DWS in 2012, he was a lecturer and research assistant at the EBS Real Estate Management Institute from 2009.
Tilhill – Peter Chappell has been appointed to head the forestry firm’s investment and property business. Chappell joined Tilhill in 2007 as a forest manager. Then, after time spent in the forest industry in Finland, Chappell returned to the company to become part of the investment and property team based in Wales.
GreenWood Resources – Nuveen’s forestry assets management firm has appointed Chris Lipton as head of timberland investment. Based in Portland, Oregon, Lipton will oversee a team of 200 employees in 10 countries and will be responsible for GreenWood’s investment platform and operations. He will also develop the company’s future strategy for timberland development. Lipton joins GreenWood from Hancock Natural Resource, where he was managing director for timberland mergers and acquisitions. Previously, Lipton held senior positions at BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group and Longview Timber Corp.
IQHQ – Jenny Whitson has joined the The life sciences real estate development company in a newly-created role of director of sustainability and ESG. Whitson will manage the overall mission, strategy and execution of IQHQ’s sustainability and ESG program with the goal to achieve net-zero emissions across the company’s 5.5m sqft life science developments in Boston, San Francisco and San Diego. Whitson will develop a plan to meet IQHQ’s sustainability goals and target of achieving carbon neutrality across the company’s growing portfolio of premier life science properties. Whitson joins IQHQ from Vanir Construction Management, where she served as the company’s corporate-wide sustainability manager for public and private sector clients, providing sustainability certification, compliance, and renewable energy consulting for commercial building owners. Whitson also served in prominent sustainability roles with Parsons, Gensler and SDA Architects & Designers.
The Conygar Investment – The property investment and development group has appointed David Baldwin as finance director. Baldwin has been with Conygar for five years as financial controller and also, since 6 April 2020, as company secretary.
Greenman Partners – The specialist European real estate and investment fund manager has appointed John O’Dwyer as a non-executive director. O’Dwyer is currently a partner and head of Europe for Element Capital, a US venture debt fund that provides non-dilutive growth capital to software businesses. Prior to this, he had spent a number of years at Allied Irish Bank most recently as head of digital investments and innovation.
Delancey – The UK-focused property investor has appointed Kate Drew as director of capital markets. Drew will be responsible for underwriting, sourcing, and executing debt strategies to support a range of Delancey’s clients and mandates. This will include both sourcing debt for equity investments and originating and structuring debt investments for the Delancey debt platform. She joins Delancey from Legal & General Investment Management where she was part of a small team which was responsible for doubling asset under management for the real estate debt platform. Prior to that role, Drew spent three and a half years at the Lloyds Banking Group where she was part of the commercial real estate team.
Savills Investment Management – The real estate investment manager has appointed Greg Lapham head of investment in Australia. Lapham will manage the Asia-Pacific income and growth fund and lead the newly appointed investment team of four. Lapham joined Savills IM from BlackRock, where he was a managing director and CIO of the APAC real estate business. Lapham will be supported by investment director Guy Sainsbury, who recently joined Savills IM from Lendlease, where he held various senior development, capital raising and origination roles. The team is supported by investment manager Anthony Lupis and Jacob van Egmond as investment analyst.
Seddons – The law firm has appointed partner Sangeeta Somchand to the position of head of commercial real estate. Somchand joined the firm in 2014 and is an experienced property solicitor with a long-established reputation in the industry, specialising in development, commercial property real estate and ancillary landlord and tenant act work. Somchand succeeds Tessa Naylor who led the department from 2017 and is retiring from the profession.
