People moves: Russell joins Federated Hermes real estate team

Orchard Street IM, Federated Hermes, Natixis CIB, Nuveen Real Estate, JLL, The Hill Group, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, Seyfarth Shaw, RELPI, Atlas Energy Solutions, Mileway, Boreal IM, Panattoni, Octopus Australia, CapMan Real Estate, Edmond de Rothschild REIM, Newmark Group, CBRE

Federated Hermes – Mark Russell has been appointed to the newly created role of head of real estate fund management. Russell will be based in London, reporting to Chris Taylor, head of real estate and will be responsible for driving the strategy and performance delivery of the real estate business and its investments within the Federated Hermes private markets platform. He joins Federated Hermes from Orchard Street IM where he was a partner, managing large core/core plus funds and playing a leading role in the development and launch of an innovative value-add strategy for impact investing in real estate. Prior to that, he was a senior fund manager at Legal & General Investment Management. Prior to his time at L&G, he was a portfolio manager at Prestbury Investment Holdings and he started his career in the real estate industry at Jones Lang Wootton.

Boreal IM – The pan-European real estate investment manager has appointed Johana Ruiz as vice president. Ruiz joins from Mileway where she oversaw development and project management of its portfolio in France. Ruiz will support in development and project management across the firm’s portfolio of standing assets and developments in the UK, Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy.

Natixis Corporate & Investment Banking – Christopher LaBianca has joined the firm’s real estate and hospitality Americas team as managing director, head of conduit origination, based in New York, and David Kadin has joined as managing director, senior originator and head of the Los Angeles office. Most recently, LaBianca served as head of origination and business development for the commercial real estate finance division of UBS Bank USA. He also led the origination platform for the real estate finance and mortgage-backed securities group within UBS Investment Bank. Prior to his time with UBS, LaBianca served in leadership positions at RCG Longview, Bank of America, Chase Manhattan Bank, Chemical Bank, and Prudential. Kadin joins from Nuveen Real Estate where he served as head of debt for the western US. Prior to his time with Nuveen, Kadin worked in leading roles at firms such as Ares Management, Wrightwood Capital, Merrill Lynch Capital, Irvine Company, and Finova Realty Capital.

Octopus Australia – Sonia Teitel and Darren Brown have been promoted to co-managing directors of renewables. Teitel and Brown have been co-heads of Octopus Australia’s investment and development team. They are now tasked with further growing Octopus’s portfolio of assets and to deliver the 6GW-plus growing portfolio for investors and other key stakeholders. Sophie Gibbons is now the firm’s head of funds distribution, product and marketing, while Jonathan Filbey has moved into the role of chief financial officer. In her new role, Gibbons will continue to lead the distribution, product, and marketing teams towards further expanding their distribution footprint and presence of Octopus Australia. Filbey, has been a member of the Octopus Group for over 10 years, working across Investments, fund management and distribution.

JLL –  Cynthia Kantor has been appointed CEO of the firm’s project and development services division to oversee a new leadership team unified under a global structure to provide clients with greater connectivity to its experts around the world. In this newly created position, Kantor now leads the full spectrum of PDS services globally, including managing the construction, development, design and branding of commercial real estate projects.

The Hill Group – The UK housebuilder has promoted Tony Parker to the role of group finance director, overseeing all aspects of finance within the growing organisation. The move consolidates Parker’s previous role as residential finance director with the group finance director position previously occupied by Neil Williams, who recently retired after having been at the helm of the group’s finances since 2011. Parker started his career with KPMG as a trainee-chartered accountant. Having focused on real estate and construction, Parker joined Kier before moving on to Hill in 2009.

Atlas Energy Solutions – Mike Howard has been appointed to serve as a member of the board and the company’s nominating and corporate governance committee. Howard serves as chairman and CEO of Howard Midstream Energy Partners. Prior to co-founding Howard Midstream in 2011, Howard was president of midstream at Energy Transfer Partners. In addition to chairing the Howard Midstream board of directors, Howard serves on the board of directors of Jonah Energy and the boards of trustees for the Texas A&M University, Kingsville Foundation, the United Way of Bexar County, and the Witte Museum.

CapMan Real Estate – Miro Karttunen, the former CEO of Newsec Property Asset Management in Finland, has been appointed head of residential property management. Karttunen will be responsible for leading property management across CapMan’s Nordic core residential portfolio. He led Newsec’s property asset management in Finland between 2017 and 2022.

Panattoni – The European logistics real estate developer has appointed Jeroen Gerritsen as general manager in Belgium, to lead the new business. Joren van Hout has been appointed technical development director for Belgium. Van Hout has more than 12 years’ experience in the public and private sides of the construction industry, including at Heylen Warehouses and as a project manager for the municipality of Westerlo in the province of Antwerp. As technical development director, he will manage relationships with the public sector, contractors, architects, engineering and other technical consulting companies. 

Edmond de Rothschild REIM – Stephen Wilson has been appointed to lead the residential property management function for the firm’s UK business. As head of residential property management at Edmond de Rothschild REIM UK, Wilson will join the firm’s UK management committee, headed by chairman, John Partridge. Wilson was previously operations director at AddLiving, the property management arm of Addington Capital. Prior to that, he was head of London property management at Touchstone.

Newmark Group – Matthew Featherstone has been aapointed head of debt and structured finance for Newmark in the UK and Europe. Based in London at Newmark’s 84 Grosvenor Street office, Featherstone joins Newmark from CBRE, where he served as executive director, debt and structured finance, capital advisors. Featherstone has nearly 20 years of finance experience spanning various real estate subsectors, including heading HSBC’s global banking UK real estate division.  

Seyfarth Shaw – Angela Hsu has joined the law firm as partners in its real estate department in Atlanta. Hsu was most recently a partner in the real estate practice group of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. Prior to that, Hsu was the chairman of the board of commissioners for the Georgia Commission on Equal Opportunity, the VP-legal at Duke Realty Corporation and a board member of Sunrise Bank of Atlanta. Hsu primarily represents a broad range of public and private companies in transactional matters, including commercial real estate, joint ventures and acquisitions and divestitures.

Real Estate Limited Partner Institute – Leigh Ann Hochman has joined the firm’s executive team in the new role of managing director, investor relations. In addition, Hochman will serve as point person in between the firm’s fund manager community and its investor and consultant constituencies. She played a key role in developing GlobeSt.com, the industry’s first and still dominant online media platform. In addition, she’s held executive advertising sales positions with CoStar and with the NJ & Co print and digital platforms.

LEM Capital – The real estate private equity firm has promoted Jenil Shah, a member of the portfolio management team, to associate. Kaderra Robinson, the firm’s operations assistant who helps oversee IT, investor relations, and office operations, has been promoted from part-time to full-time employee.