People moves: Macquarie’s GIG appoints regional heads

3i Infrastructure, National Grid, Actis, DigitalBridge, Partners Group, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, King & Spalding, AXA IM Alts, LXi REIT, UKGBC, Eurofund Group, GIG, Macquarie, Stonepeak Partners, Knight Frank, Mitie, RE Capital, Bruce Gillingham Pollard, UKAA, BNP Paribas Real Estate

Green Investment Group – Macquarie Asset Management’s GIG has appointed William Demas as head of Americas, in New York. Demas re-joins Macquarie from Stonepeak Partners. He has also held leading positions at Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and spent the early part of his career at Good Energies. Demas is also a former member of Macquarie Capital’s power, utilities and renewables group. Edward Northam, who led GIG’s Europe arm for five years has been appointed as GIG’s head of APAC. Northam has been involved in the global renewable energy industry for over 25 years, and has led the GIG business in Europe since 2017 when the Green Investment Bank was acquired by Macquarie. In addition to his role as head of APAC, Northam will continue to lead GIG’s global core renewables strategy from his base in Singapore. Chris Archer and Sam Newman have been appointed co-heads of GIG in EMEA. Archer previously led GIG in the Americas. Newman played a leading role in the acquisition of the Green Investment Bank in 2017 and has been responsible for the realisation of numerous GIG wind and solar investments across the globe.

GLP –  Jennifer Weitzel has been appointed as president of global data centre business. Weitzel brings over two decades of experience leading infrastructure teams. She contributed to the growth and geo-expansion of Microsoft’s cloud operation and innovation data centre presence. Prior to Microsoft, she spent seven years at Digital Realty in various executive leadership roles. In her new role, Weitzel will directly lead strategy, growth and operations of GLP’s data centre business commencing across Japan, Europe and the Americas and partner with GLP’s IDC team in China to establish a global business within the data centre sector. 

AXA IM Alts - Louis Leveillé Nizerolle has been appointed head of transactions France. He will replace Antoine Mesnage, who has been promoted to head of Australia for AXA IM Alts. Nizerolle has played a key role in a number of high-profile investments, including the acquisition in 2019 of Groupe Kley. Prior to joining AXA IM Alts’ real assets transactions team, Nizerolle was in charge of the asset management of a diversified property portfolio of more than €1.1bn value in France. Mesnage is relocating to Australia after 15 years at AXA IM Alts in France. Mesnage will spearhead the next phase of growth in Australia, as part of the firm’s development ambitions in the APAC region. 

DigitalBridge –The NYSE-listed global digital infrastructure investment firm has appointed Tae E Ahn as managing director and head of Asia capital formation at DigitalBridge Investment Management. Based in Singapore, he will work alongside DigitalBridge’s existing team with a focus on capital formation, co-investment and client relationship management across Asia-Pacific. Prior to joining DigitalBridge, he served as senior client relationship manager and head of Korea at global private markets firm Partners Group. Before joining Partners Group, Ahn focused on fundraising at ING Investment Management Korea and H&Q Korea Partners Holdings. Earlier in his career, he worked in debt capital markets at Credit Suisse HK and in the investment banking division at JP Morgan in New York.

BNP Paribas Real Estate – Leighton Thomas has been appointed head of UK lease advisory. Thomas who currently serves as head of the Northern Region and the Sheffield office, has expanded his remit to lead the national lease advisory team that advises across all real estate asset types. In his newly enhanced role, Thomas will lead the team in providing tailored solutions to its clients to achieve the most favourable settlements across the life cycle of a commercial lease. Thomas has enjoyed a career at BNP Paribas Real Estate spanning over 25 years.

3i Infrastructure –  The London-listed infrastructure investment has approved the appointment of Stephanie Hazell as a non-executive director. Hazell has over 20 years’ experience spanning the energy, infrastructure and telecoms sectors. She was previously group director of strategy and corporate development at National Grid having begun her career as a management consultant with PwC before taking on senior roles with Orange and Virgin Group respectively. She currently holds non-executive director roles at Renew Holdings, Neos Networks, North Sea Midstream Partners and Piclo. She is also a member of the advisory committee of Shell New Energy Ventures.

Actis – The infrastructure manager is expanding its footprint into CEE with the hire of Jaroslava Korpanec as partner and head of Central and Eastern Europe. Korpanec join in September from Allianz Capital Partners to lead Actis’s investment activity in the region.

Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner – Varuna Bhattacharyya has joined the international law firm as partner in the New York office. She joins from King & Spalding, where she maintained a well-regarded commercial real estate finance practice while actively participating in diversity and pro bono initiatives. 

LXi REIT – Non-executive director Patricia Dimond will step down from the board. John Cartwright, non-executive director of the company, will take over as chair of the audit committee. The board will now comprise six non-executive directors – Cyrus Ardalan as chairman, Hugh Seaborn as senior independent director, John Cartwright, Ismat Levin, Nick Leslau and Sandy Gumm.

Knight Frank – the global property consultancy has appointed Joe Warren as associate to join its ESG consulting team. Warren will provide expert insight into UK ESG regulation, carbon-reduction strategies and sustainable building solutions, expanding the team’s  capacity to advise clients across multivariant project and building issues throughout the whole life cycle of real estate assets. He joins from Mitie, where he spent seven years specialising in technical energy solutions. He developed additional technical experience in roles at David Maher & Associates and Coffey Construction. 

UKGBC – The UK green building council has appointed of Basil Demeroutis, managing partner, FORE Partnership to its board of trustees. Demeroutis, a former partner at Capricorn Investment Group, founded FORE in 2012.

Eurofund Group – The international real estate investment and development company has appointed Allison Newton as CEO of THE HOOD, the firm’s culture-oriented anti-mall retail concept in Lisbon, Portugal. Newton has a career spanning almost 20 years across multiple sectors, including education, tourism and entertainment marketing across America, Asia and Europe. She most recently held sales and marketing strategic lead roles in food and beverage at MAHOU San Miguel and AB InBev and in construction at Interserve.

RE Capital – The pan-European investment firm has appointed Yuan Sun as head of residential development. She joins RE Capital from Strawberry Star Homes where she oversaw four major mixed-use regeneration projects. Prior to that, she served as head of development at London Legacy Development Corporation and also worked at Greenland UK, where she led the development of two major residential schemes. At RE Capital, she will lead the pan-European company’s entrance to the UK BTR and BTS residential and mixed-use markets. She will also support RE Capital’s Lisbon team.

UKAA – The UK apartment association has appointed Ashley Perry as the new vice-chair of its investor lender forum. Perry, who brings over a decade of experience to UKAA, served as investment director at Apache Capital since the start of 2022, following five years as BTR director at Liv Consult.

Bruce Gillingham Pollard – The niche retail and leisure consultancy has appointed Lizzie Knights as a director in its Central London leasing team. Formerly with Colliers and BNP Paribas Real Estate, Knights has extensive experience of working on retail and leisure leasing across prime London locations including Grosvenor’s Mayfair and Belgravia estates; Shaftesbury’s Soho and Carnaby holdings; Argent’s Coal Drops Yard at King’s Cross; and Leadenhall Market in the City of London.