Two senior property professionals have joined embattled shared workspace provider WeWork from Europa Capital and Commerz Real.
The Softbank-backed firm has recruited Belinda Chain, formerly a partner and head of asset financing at Europa Capital for nearly 14 years, as EMEA strategic partnerships director, debt and capital markets.
Prior to joining Europa Capital, Chain was at Deutsche Bank, Babcock & Brown and Schroders Property in the UK and Australia. She will be based at WeWork’s EMEA headquarters in London.
WeWork has also appointed Katharina von Schacky as head of strategy for Germany and Northern Europe. She was previously global head of shopping at Commerz Real, where she was global head of retail responsible for nearly one-third of the €14 bn hausInvest fund. Before that, she was responsible for building Unibail Rodamco Westfield's market position in third-party business in Germany after having worked for many years at DTZ (now Cushman & Wakefield) - most latterly as a member of the executive committee.
She will be responsible for the establishment and expansion of strategic relationships with relevant business partners, combined with the goal of driving future growth in the region. She reports from the Berlin headquarters to Heiko Himme, VP Head of Real Estate for Northern and Central Europe at WeWork.
Both take up their positions in January.
Patrick Nelson, head of Real Estate EMEA at WeWork, said: 'Katharina and Belinda have an impressive wealth of experience and I look forward to their expertise making a major contribution to our strategic growth. We are already looking at a remarkable expansion in EMEA, driven by the demand from existing members and potential new members in search of flexible workplace models, and we want to continue this development successfully in 2020 and beyond.'
