People moves: Jacob joins Aberdeen Standard’s listed real estate team | News

JLL, Charter Hall, Cushman & Wakefield, Investa, Aberdeen Standard Investments, Castleforge Partners, GCM Grosvenor, NorthCroft Capital, CBRE

Aberdeen Standard Investments – Valerie Jacob has been appointed fund manager for the global listed real estate team. Jacob is responsible for European and UK listed real estate strategies. She will also provide research expertise whilst identifying investment opportunities in the European and UK real estate securities market. Valerie will report to Svitlana Gubriy, head of listed real estate funds.

Castleforge Partners – The London-based property investment firm has appointed Iris Zhao-Fiorello as head of capital formation and investment solutions. Based in New York, Zhao-Fiorello joins Castleforge from global investment and advisory firm GCM Grosvenor where she was MD, private equity investments. Prior to GCM, she was partner at the Customized Fund Investment Group, a business unit of Credit Suisse Group that focused on customised private market solutions and was acquired by GCM in 2014. Zhao-Fiorello established Credit Suisse CFIG’s Hong Kong office, served as a founding member of CFIG’s London office, and led multiple investment verticals during her tenure at Credit Suisse and GCM Grosvenor.

JLL – Aleksandra Gawrońska has been appointed head of residential research at JLL Poland. Gawrońska will be responsible for the development of services, tools, and solutions in the area of residential market analysis, including traditional primary residential market as well as living sector. She will lead the team of eight analysts responsible for the primary residential market monitoring throughout Poland as well as preparation of reports for Polish and international developers, landlords and investment funds, the public sector and other entities involved in the housing market. 

Investa – Peter Menegazzo has been promoted to the role of CEO from his current position of chief investment officer. Menegazza replaces current CEO Jonathan Callaghan, who is stepping down following an internal and external executive recruitment process. Menegazzo re-joined Investa in 2007 after earlier working within the business from 2002-2004. Prior to his current role, he was fund manager of Investa Commercial Property Fund.

INREV – Martin Lemke, MD of AM Alpha, has been appointed INREV’s new chair. Lemke has been an active member of INREV for some time, having served on the management board for five years and as departing chair of the INREV. Outgoing management board chair, Marieke van Kamp, head of private markets at NN Group, is stepping down from the position after serving the maximum of two, three-year terms. Michael Clarke, senior adviser at Accord Group, and Michael Hornsby, partner, EY Luxembourg, have also served their full six years on the board and will step down too. Joining the management board for the first time, are: Alberto Agazzi, CEO, Generali Real Estate; Lucy Fletcher, MD, QuadReal Property; John Ravoisin, audit and advisory partner, PwC Luxembourg and Rob Wilkinson, CEO, AEW Europe.

CBRE – Marcus Sperber, BlackRock’s former global real estate head, has joined CBRE as a consultant and chair of strategic investment advisory board. Sperber will join the newly created role within the investment advisory business, led by Graeme Rutter and part of Capital Advisors. Sperber stepped down from his role at BlackRock in 2019 and has recently launched NorthCroft Capital, a property investment firm. Prior to his global real estate head role at BlackRock, Sperber was head of the EMEA real estate business and was formerly the portfolio manager of BlackRock’s UK property fund. He joined Merrill Lynch Investment Managers in 2002, prior to its merger with BlackRock in 2006. Sperber was recently appointed to the boards of Canadian real estate firm Cadillac Fairview and Fiera Real Estate Investments as a non-executive director and independent director respectively.

Charter Hall – Tica Hessing has been appointed to the newly created role of workplace strategy manager for Charter Hall’s A$23bn office platform. She will focus on identifying and forecasting global workplace trends and innovation around the future of work. Hessing joins Charter Hall from Cushman & Wakefield, where she was a human geographer and workplace strategy manager for six years.