APREA Names Former C&W Exec Sigrid Zialcita as New CEO

Sigrid Zialcita has been appointed chief executive officer of the Asia Pacific Real Estate Association (APREA) and will assume her duties on January 2nd, the group announced Tuesday.

Zialcita takes up her duties with the real estate industry non-profit after having served as managing director of Asia Pacific research for Cushman & Wakefield for the last eight years, providing thought leadership across 15 countries, and worked at C&W’s Washington DC office as a director from 2003 to 2010. She has also worked as a senior economist at the National Association of Realtors in Washington, and as a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York City.

Zialcita is widely recognized as a speaker at industry events in the region, and has published commentaries on commercial and residential real estate markets in publications including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Bloomberg. She has also appeared as a commentator on financial networks including Channel News Asia, CNBC and CNN.

APREA Aims for Growth Under New Leader

John Lim, the chairman of APREA, which promotes real estate as an asset class in Asia Pacific and advises regional governments on investment rules and tax systems that encourage property investment, said the APREA board was “confident that with her extensive experience in the real estate sector,” Zialcita would “bring new perspectives and lead APREA into its next phase of growth.”

Zialcita’s background in research should come in handy in her new role, dovetailing with APREA’s stated mission of “championing world-class research that provides information on the industry’s performance and trends in Asia Pacific” and encouraging “businesses to network and interact through marquee real estate events.”

APREA said its member companies have an estimated $1 trillion of assets under management.

Building a Network

Zialcita, who holds an MBA from Cornell University and a master’s degree in economics from Penn State, said she was looking forward to starting her new role and “building on APREA’s strong foundations by working closely with our members to provide them with greater access to real estate-related opportunities.”

Zialcita replaces Peter Verwer, who Lim said had “strengthened APREA as the go-to organisation for real estate-related best practices and policies.”