People moves: Johnston to replace Hickey as Lendlease Americas CEO

HSPG, Trammell Crow Company, Tiger Infrastructure Partners, Cohen & Steers, M&G Real Estate, Nuveen Real Estate, Copernicus, PAREF Group, BNP Paribas Real Estate, Cushman & Wakefield, Altus Group, CBRE, Lendlease, CBRE IM, QuadReal Property, Knight Property, Atrato, Abrdn, Investec Aviation Finance, SC Capital 

Lendlease – Global chief operating officer and CEO Americas Denis Hickey has decided to leave the organisation after 10 years. Claire Johnston, currently Lendlease’s managing director, Google Development Ventures, will assume the position of CEO Americas effective November 1. Joining the company in 2012 to lead the Australian development business, Hickey relocated to New York in 2014 to reinvigorate the company’s extensive US operations. Johnston’s career with Lendlease spans 26 years, starting as a graduate in Australia. She has worked across the business in multiple markets partnering with some of our largest customers, including the US Department of Defense, running the military housing portfolio and, more recently, leading our development partnership with Google.

QuadReal Property – The global real estate company has appointed Juliet Cha as vice president research and strategy, Asia Pacific. Cha is joining QuadReal’s global research and strategy team and will be based in Hong Kong. She will be responsible for research and analysis into investment transactions, sector trends and real estate performance across geographies in APAC, supporting QuadReal’s strategy as it grows its portfolio in the region. Cha previously worked as director of insight and intelligence at CBRE IM, and assistant manager, valuation at Colliers.

M&G Real Estate – Rodolphe Launay joins M&G in Paris as an associate director of asset management to support activities in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Ireland. Prior to joining M&G, Launay spent 15 years at Bouygues Bâtiment IDF - Rénovation Privée where he held various positions as business manager and head of commercial department. Derya Monshi joins as senior asset manager within M&G’s Frankfurt-based team, supporting real estate activities in Germany and Poland. Most recently she was a director of asset management at Nuveen Real Estate, where she was responsible for developing asset management strategies and coordinating the property management. Diego Laguia has been appointed senior associate asset manager in M&G’s Madrid office to support investment and asset management activities. Laguia joins from Copernicus, where he was head of real estate advisory, responsible for implementing investment and asset management initiatives and defining value-add origination strategies for Spain.

Cohen & Steers – Kazuya Yuasa has joined Cohen & Steers as a senior vice president. Effective 1 January 2023, Yuasa will succeed Ken Itai, who is retiring, as head of Cohen Steers Japan. In addition to leading the operations of Cohen & Steers’ Tokyo office, Yuasa will be responsible for enhancing the firm’s existing client relationships and further expanding business in Japan, working closely with and reporting to Matthew Pace, head of global relationship management. Yuasa joins Cohen & Steers with over 30 years of financial services experience, including 19 years of experience in business development and relationship management roles at global asset managers. Yuasa most recently served as managing director at Wellington Management. Prior to joining Wellington in 2008, Yuasa worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.

Trammell Crow Company – The global developer and investor in commercial real estate has appointed Jean-Marc Blanc as country head for France and Belgium. Based in Paris, Blanc will be responsible for the overall direction, strategy, sourcing, acquisition and financing for the development of large-scale logistics development projects across France and Belgium. He will report to Ian Worboys, TCC’s managing director, head of European logistics. Blanc joins TCC from Financière des Quatre Rives, a specialist development and asset management company headquartered in Paris, where he was a managing director. Prior to that, he held various roles covering the spectrum of residential and commercial property development, investment and asset management responsibilities with companies such as Martek Group, Cibex and DTZ.

Investec Aviation Finance – Jonathan Lee has been appointed originator, based in Singapore. Lee will be responsible for deal origination, including the buying and selling of aircraft; deal structuring, pricing, and financial modelling; negotiating acquisition and sale transactions; and sourcing external debt financing and refinancing to optimise equity returns. He joins from ST Engineering, the Singaporean technology and engineering group, where he spent four years in a similar role. Before joining the aviation leasing space, he acquired seven years’ experience in M&A. 

CBRE – Sung Lee has joined the firm’s valuation and advisory services team as head of fund valuations for the Americas. Lee has more than 20 years of experience in the commercial real estate industry and specialises in the valuation of institutional real estate. Based in New York City, he is responsible for developing and managing strategic partnerships with leading real estate investors and investment managers within the private fund and institutional space. Lee joins CBRE from Altus Group, a provider of software and advisory services to the global commercial real estate industry, where he was most recently co-head of global advisory and mergers and acquisitions. He had been with Altus Group since 2010, holding senior roles, including head of global accounts and global head of business development. Prior to that, he was at PwC and Intercontinental Investments.

BNP Paribas Real Estate – Argie Taylor has been appointed as head of international investment group. He will be starting his new role in April 2023. Patrick Delcol has been appointed head of European coverage for retail, logistics and hospitality. Taylor will join from Cushman & Wakefield where he has been running the global division as an international partner in its EMEA capital markets team. He started his career over 17 years ago and initially focused on advising the major German investors Deka, Union and Commerz in the UK but over the past decade has specialised in APAC capital flows into Europe, in particular institutional investors and UHNWs from Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea. Taylor will be in charge of the office business and also of BNP Paribas Real Estate’s platforms in the Middle East and Asia. His appointment comes as Larry Young, who has led the team since 2018, takes up a new role in the firm’s London capital markets team. Peter Roesler, who was supervising the international investment group team since the launch in 2012, will manage the Asian and Middle East platforms until Taylor joins in April next year. Delcol has been working as head of European retail within BNP Paribas Real Estate. His scope has just been expanded to encompass the European coordination of Logistics (headed by Craig Maguire) and Hospitality activities (headed by Artyom Perevedentsev). Delcol has over 30 years of experience in the real estate sector, particularly in retail. He started his career at BESIX Group before joining the Eastbridge Group, then ING Real Estate Development and DTZ. He then joined BNP Paribas Real Estate in 2013 as CEO for Central and Eastern Europe before being appointed head of European retail in 2018.

Atrato Group – Ollie Mottram has been appointed as director of fund management. Mottram, who reports to Robert Abraham, managing director, fund management, has seven years’ experience in real estate investment and asset management and joins from Abrdn. During his time at Abrdn, Mottram progressed from portfolio manager to transactions manager, with responsibility for the sourcing, coordination and execution of real estate transactions across Abrdn’s UK funds.

Knight Property – Stuart Heslop has joined the team as a non-executive director. Prior to joining Knight Property Stuart had been managing director of real estate finance at RBS for Scotland and the North of England and a policy board member of the Scottish Property Federation. In his new position, he will work alongside the Knight Property Group and Chess Group boards, providing expert advice and counsel on finance and economic matters, as well as the ongoing development of the portfolio, driving business growth in existing and new sectors. 

Cushman & Wakefield –  Andrew Meikle has been appointed as an international partner in Cushman & Wakefield’s national offices and UK capital markets teams. Meikle will join from BNP Paribas where he has spent nearly 10 years as a senior director and head of investment in the Birmingham team, advising investor clients on the disposal and acquisition of commercial property assets and development funding, as well as corporates on sale and leasebacks. Prior to that Meikle spent nearly 14 years at CBRE, six of which were as a director in Birmingham where he established the development consultancy team, focused on consultancy, land transactions and development funding, before moving into capital markets activity. At Cushman & Wakefield, Meikle will be a senior member of the UK capital markets team. Based at Cushman & Wakefield’s Midlands regional hub in Birmingham, Meikle will be responsible for driving activity in the Midlands and wider regions, working closely with Ned Jones and other key members of the team.

Tiger Infrastructure Partners – Danielle J Hunt has been appointed chief corporate counsel. Hunt joins from Allianz Global Investors, where she was director and associate general counsel and served as both global head of alternative transactions legal and head of US institutional legal. Prior to joining Allianz Global Investors in 2017, Hunt was with the project, energy and infrastructure finance group at international law firm Milbank.

SC Capital – Chiu Man Yik has been appointed managing director and head of asset management for SC Capital’s real estate capital Asia partners series of opportunistic funds. Chiu joins the Singapore-based firm from CapitaLand Investment Management, where he was responsible for overseeing all assets in the value-add fund. Prior to joining CapitaLand, Chiu spent 13 years with LaSalle Investment Management, where he was head of asset management for Greater China. June Kim Kyoung Joon has joined SC Capital as executive director for its Japan hospitality fund. Based in Tokyo, Kim will focus on acquisition, value enhancement and realisation activities for the fund. She was previously a director of asset management of hotels with EGW Asset Management, and prior to that was with Fortress Investment Group Japan as a vice president for hotel acquisitions and asset management. Kim has also had stints at Jones Lang LaSalle Tokyo and Morgan Stanley Capital in Japan. Justin Cham has been appointed investment director and Jester Perez as research director. Most recently, Cham was head of investments, global, with Keppel Capital and Keppel DC REI. Perez joins SC Capital from Lendlease, where he worked for 10 years overseeing research in Asia and providing research house views and strategic insights. He will oversee internal research across SC Capital’s strategies, covering the Asia-Pacific market.

HSPG – The UK’s leading social impact real estate firm has appointed Wissam Chouceir managing director and Burak Varisli as senior advisor. Chouceir will work closely with the board and lead the growth of the newly formed investment group. Chouceir has experience at WeWork, where he joined as senior director in 2018. Prior to this, he spent a decade working in private equity roles with a focus on investment and development in residential and mixed-use projects across the US, UK and Europe. Chouceir also sits on the investment committee of Network Homes. Joining as non-executive director at HSPG, Varisli has completed over £1.5bn worth of transactions in residential investments, with a particular focus on affordable housing. Burak also has considerable experience as a founding partner at later living platforms, as well as trusted advisory roles at JLL and Avision Young residential capital markets for almost ten years.

PAREF Group – Alexandre de Vaivre joins the firm as head of capital markets. De Vaivre has started his career as head of sales for the derivatives desks of Société Générale and BNP Paribas before moving to Schroder Adveq in Switzerland as managing director and member of the executive committee of the Swiss Private Equity group. He then headed the Swiss subsidiary of a family office. He co-founded Investment Circle, an investment and consulting firm specialising in climate tech.