Departures outnumber arrivals in this week’s edition of Mingtiandi’s look at personnel moves across Asia Pacific’s real estate industry, with senior executives stepping away from KKR Japan, Oaktree Capital Management, Keppel and Queensland’s QIC alongside a leadership change at a Singapore-listed hospitality trust and India’s RMZ. A new appointment at Asia Pacific’s largest self-storage platform and a Tokyo-based fund management hire round out this week’s list.
Avnish Singh has concluded his role at RMZ Corp after four and a half years helming the Bengaluru-based developer and investment group. Singh joined RMZ in October 2021 as managing director of investment management and was later promoted to chief executive of real assets investments and equity capital markets, where he led acquisitions, capital raising and global partnerships. Before RMZ he spent nearly nine years as managing director and country head of India for Tishman Speyer, and earlier held senior roles at GE Capital Real Estate and JLL. No new role has been announced, according to his LinkedIn profile.
KJRM Private Solutions, the private real assets arm of KKR-backed Japanese real estate manager KJRM, has appointed Hajime Watanabe as managing director and chief investment officer. Watanabe joins after nearly 10 years at UBS Japan Advisors, where he served as president and representative director as well as head of portfolio management, leading the firm’s real estate fund business across multifamily, hospitality, office, logistics and retail. He brings more than 23 years of real estate and financial services experience, including prior roles at Deutsche Bank and Cosmos Initia, according to a LinkedIn update.
Kensuke Kudo has stepped down as managing director at KKR‘s Japan real estate division, departing after building and leading the firm’s Japan real estate team and overseeing its involvement with KJRM. Before KKR he served as managing director at Fortress Investment Group for 11 years, and earlier held senior roles at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan in Tokyo, where he specialised in real estate structured finance and commercial mortgage-backed securities, according to his LinkedIn profile. Kudo is said to be planning to dedicate time to family rather than step immediately into a new role.
One of Oaktree Capital Management‘s most senior investment professionals for Asia, Pedro Urquidi, is set to depart the firm in the coming months, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg. Urquidi, who has spent more than two decades at Oaktree, heads opportunistic credit outside North America and relocated to Hong Kong in 2019 to help grow the firm’s Asia platform before moving to Rome in January 2025. He joined Oaktree in 2005 after a decade at Morgan Stanley, where he built and led the European Special Situations Group in London.
Ken Negishi has departed his role as Japan chief executive at Keppel‘s fund management and investment business, a position he held from April 2023. Before Keppel Nigishi served as executive director and head of capital markets at JLL Japan for four and a half years, and spent nine and a half years as representative director of Deka Real Estate Lending K.K., the Japanese lending vehicle of German asset manager DekaBank. Earlier roles included managing director at Merrill Lynch Japan, where he founded and led a nonrecourse real estate finance team, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Andrew Champion has concluded his role as head of natural capital at QIC, the Queensland government-owned investment manager, after four years building the fund’s direct investment programme in agricultural assets and environmental markets, according to a LinkedIn post. During his tenure Champion arranged QIC’s participation in a consortium with Wollemi Capital and Kalfresh Vegetables to fund a food and farm waste-to-energy platform across Queensland. Champion previously chaired the Blue Sky Alternatives Access Fund and established the Sydney office of Blue Sky Alternative Investments. He has yet to announce a new role.
Lee Jin Yong will step down as chief executive officer of the manager of Singapore-listed Acrophyte Hospitality Trust, effective 15 July 2026, according to an announcement to the Singapore exchange. Lee, who is 58, has served as CEO since 1 January 2019. The board, which said a succession plan is in place subject to regulatory approval, thanked him for his service during his term of office and said it would make an announcement on his successor at the appropriate time. Acrophyte’s auditors earlier this month raised doubts concerning the SGX-listed REIT’s ability to refinance a $198.5 million loan that falls due in September.
John Dixon has joined StorHub Self Storage, Asia Pacific’s largest self-storage platform, as head of acquisitions and portfolio management, effective February 2026. Based in Singapore, Dixon leads the end-to-end investment process across seven markets — Japan, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, China and Hong Kong — for the Warburg Pincus-backed operator. He joins from Partners Group, where he spent three and a half years as an investment leader focused on private real estate in Asia, and before that held senior roles at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong and London, according to a LinkedIn post.
If you know of other Asia real estate professionals changing their jobs, getting promoted or just doing something exciting, please contact us here at Mingtiandi.
Leave a Reply