Zehner brings extensive experience within ULI to the role. A member for almost 30 years, Zehner has served as a trustee since 2000 and has held positions on the ULI Board of Directors, the ULI Europe Executive Committee, and the European Steering Committee. Zehner is also a member of ULI’s European Retail and Entertainment Product Council and the Global Exchange Council.
During his term, Zehner will focus on three areas: enhancing ULI’s reputation as a real estate thought leader on key issues such as density, sustainability and diversity, broadening ULI’s membership, and increasing opportunities for members to engage.
ULI’s membership in Europe has grown strongly in recent years to over 2,700 members based in 27 different countries. As well as continuing to grow the organisation’s membership, Zehner hopes to broaden ULI’s appeal to attract members from different countries, sectors and backgrounds.
'We want to continue to grow the ULI network across Europe, but this is not just about increasing the total number of our members,' said Zehner. 'We want to ensure our membership grows across all disciplines of real estate and encourage greater engagement with the designers, developers and institutional investors of real estate and the public sector. We have strong membership levels in core real estate markets such as the UK, Germany and France, but we also want to ensure a greater geographical balance of membership by encouraging growth in other countries such as Ireland, Poland and Belgium.'
According to Zehner, attracting a diverse range of members is crucial to enhancing ULI’s standing as a thought leader in Europe. 'The goal for ULI, is the same as the goal for the industry as a whole – to be more reflective of society,' said Zehner. 'If we can encourage more women and people from different social and ethnic backgrounds within the real estate sector to join and engage with ULI, then they will in turn act as role models for younger people looking to join the industry.'
Zehner began his career in real estate at JP Morgan, where he worked for 28 years and held a number of senior positions, including Global Head of Real Estate Investment Banking and Head of Sub-Saharan Africa. Zehner subsequently served as Senior Director at AREA Property Partners, where he was responsible for client relationships, deal origination and strategic development.
In 2012, Zehner joined LaSalle Investment Management, where he now oversees the firm’s global activities relating to clients raising capital, product development, and marketing and communications.
