People moves: Abrdn appoints Tarasiuk head of core infrastructure investments

Patron Capital – The pan-European institutional investor focused on property-backed investments has appointed Mal Hunt as senior partner and head of investor relations and strategic partnerships. Hunt joins from Bfinance, where he advised more than 200 investors across 45 countries on private and public-markets portfolio design, manager selection and monitoring. Prior to this, Hunt was an executive director of EMEA client coverage at MSCI, and previously gained experience at Investment Property Databank, M&G and Bank of Ireland.

Helical – The UK-listed real estate investment trust has announced that Matthew Bonning-Snook, property director, will succeed Gerald Kaye as CEO of the Company at the next annual general meeting in July. Kaye has informed the board that, after 30 years with the company, he will stepping down. He will remain as an external consultant. Bonning-Snook joined the business in 1995 and the board in 2007.

Newcore Capital – The UK-focused real estate investment manager specialising in social infrastructure has appointed Charles Weeks as a senior adviser. Weeks was previously head of real estate for Europe and Asia-Pacific at Barings. At Newcore, Weeks will be advising CEO Hugo Llewelyn and the senior team on the development of the business, with a focus on expanding its investor base and partnerships.

Plenary – Paul Oppenheim has succeeded John O’Rourke as chair of the public infrastructure investor, developer and manager Plenary. Oppenheim was Plenary’s inaugural CEO from its 2004 inception until moving to a non-executive director role in January 2020. He was credited with playing a key role in the global capital raising process that led to the partnership agreement with Abu Dhabi-based investment holding company ADQ, taking a 49% interest in Plenary. Oppenheim founded Plenary group with O’Rourke, Ray Wilson, and Jim Cox. He chairs  the Parklife Metro entity delivering the Sydney Metro-Western Sydney Airport Public-private partnership and represents Plenary on the boards of the Sydney Metro North West and City and Southwest projects. O’Rouke who has chaired the Plenary board for the past 20 years, remains on the board as non-executive director.

Achmea Real Estate – Judith Tillie will start as director of asset management at the Dutch investment manager on 1 July 2024. She previously worked at Woonzorg Nederland in property management. 

CBRE – Colin Thomasson has been promoted to head of UK investment properties. Thomasson, who is an executive director, will maintain his current responsibility for running the Northern investment properties business, alongside his new nationwide role. He will continue to be based in CBRE’s Manchester office and will retain his role as lead advisor to the Greater Manchester property venture fund. Thomasson joined CBRE 12 years ago and has over 30 years’ experience working in real estate investment. 

JLL – Sam Hill has been appointed in the new role of project and development services data centres lead in the UK. He joins from Arcadis where he was responsible for leading a key EMEA data centre account for design/project management.

Zenzic Capital — The real estate credit and special situations investment manager has appointed Chris Blowers senior advisor. Across his long career, Blowers has held senior positions at Royal Bank of Scotland, Allied Irish Bank and Investec Bank. He co-founded Maslow Capital in 2009.

Knight Frank – The global property adviser has appointed Kerensa Jennings to the group executive board as non-executive adviser. Mosst recently, Jennings served as director of data platforms at BT Group, with previous roles including CEO of a digital social enterprise for the Royal Household based at Buckingham Palace, and head of strategic delivery at the BBC. Since 2009 Jennings has served on a range of boards including commercial companies, social enterprises, charities and government committees. Currently held positions include: independent non-executive director at Southern Water’s audit, risk and ESG committees; remuneration committee trustee at Sir John Soane’s Museum; chair at techUK’s Local Digital Capital Working Group; charity governance at Founders4Schools; adviser at Institute of Coding, and advisory board member at Digital Leaders.

Latham & Watkins – Douglas Heitner has joined the firm’s New York office as a partner in the real estate practice. Heitner advises clients on the full spectrum of real estate transactions, including joint ventures, financings, investment sales and acquisitions, secondary market debt acquisitions and dispositions, developments, leasing, loan workouts, and public and private projects across numerous sectors and asset classes. Most recently, he served as chief legal officer at New York-based real estate investment trust Safehold, formerly known as iStar, where he was responsible for all legal matters, including asset-level work, securities, and capital markets.

AM Alpha – Les Koltai has been appointed head of Australia, and Caroline Dellasega as VP of investor relations. Koltai will expand the firm’s presence in Australia and create new investment opportunities for AM Alpha’s clients. Koltai was most recently a partner at the global law firm DLA Piper in Sydney for over 12 years, where he was responsible for the firm’s real estate practice as head of real estate. Dellasega, in her newly created position, based in Singapore, will enhance the firm’s efforts in managing and expanding relationships with its investment partners. Dellasega has previous experience with Cushman & Wakefield’s EMEA and APAC global capital markets teams in Singapore and London. Most recently, she served for over three years as director of investment strategy at the Anken Group.  

Addington Capital – Matt Pears has been appointed new operations director of AddLiving, Addington’s sister residential lettings and management business. Pears joins AddLiving from Wildheart Residential Management where he was a property director. joining Wildheart in 2016, Pears was a senior property manager at Grainger PLC for over 10 years. 

Bidwells – The property consultancy has appointed Mark Teasdale as its head of economics and social value to bolster the company’s socio-economic planning offering. Teasdale will also be responsible for developing the Bidwells social value strategy, ensuring the business grows and measures the positive social impact its activities have on the communities we work in. Teasdale brings over 30 years’ experience delivering mixed-use schemes, often subject to environmental impact assessment. He has extensive experience in assessing socio-economic, housing and health impacts to support major planning applications and development consent orders.