People in the News is back after a rare break last week and we will do our best to get all of you caught up with who will be emailing you from a new address in the year of the rooster. To kick things off, the world’s largest pension fund has a new head of real estate, and one of China’s biggest investors has promoted a key outbound deal-maker. Meanwhile, US Internet unicorns continue to build their real estate teams, and much more – if you just read on.
Hideto Yamada has joined Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund as head of real estate, according to a report by Asterisk Realty. The former managing director at Mitsui Fudosan joins the world’s largest pension fund after recently returning to Japan from the UK, where he had spent eight years running the Japanese developer’s operations in the United Kingdom and Europe. In his new role running GPIF’s property business, Yamada is tasked with expanding the fund’s real estate investments beyond Japan.
Jason Zhang is now Senior Director in the Asia Pacific Investment and Asset Management Department at Fosun Property Holdings in Shanghai. In his new role Zhang is responsible for business development, including real estate investment, platform acquisition, and asset management in Asia Pacific for one of China’s largest private investment conglomerates. The new position for Zhang comes after the UCLA graduate spent more than two years as Director for North America Investment and Development at Fosun.
Peter Ballantyne-Barrell has joined WeWork in Shanghai as Director of Real Estate Transactions for Asia Pacific. Ballantyne-Barrell takes on the new role after nearly six years with JLL in China, where he served most recently as a Senior Manager with the tenant representation division of the office leasing team based in Shanghai. The new addition to the WeWork team comes as the US-based co-working giant continues to ramp up its presence in Asia after opening its first locations in the region last year.
Samantha Toh has joined Uber in Singapore as APACx Facility Project Manager with the US-based ride sharing unicorn. Toh started her new job this month after two years with another US start-up venture – online razor provider Harry’s. In her previous role, Toh, who also formerly served with the retail division of Savills in Singapore, started as the Real Estate Manager before becoming Director of Business Development with the Internet shaving store.
Henkey Lai has been promoted to Assistant Manager with the investment team at Savills in Hong Kong. The graduate of Hong Kong University’s master’s in real estate program takes his step up at the property consultancy after serving just over one year as an Associate. Lai, who did his undergraduate work at Jinan University on the mainland also has previous experience as an Analyst with JLL in Guangzhou.
As usual, if you know of other China real estate professionals changing their jobs, getting promoted or just doing something exciting, please feel free to share with the rest of the community here at Mingtiandi.
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