Colliers Appoints Charles Yan as Managing Director for North China

Colliers International has brought in former Cushman and Wakefield and CBRE executive Charles Yan to head up its North China business, according to an announcement by the NASDAQ-listed property services company.

Yan’s appointment follows February’s departure of the company’s previous Managing Director for North China, Jie Li, who moved on to Beijing Huamao Commercial Management Co Ltd after spending nearly three years at Colliers.

Former Cushman Director Takes Over Beijing Operation

Yan joins Colliers from Cushman and Wakefield where he had served as head of the company’s occupier services group for North China for five years. A veteran of the industry with over twenty years’ experience, Yan has also served as a Deputy General Manager and Head of Occupier Services for North China with DTZ from 2008 until 2014, prior to DTZ’s merger with Cushman and Wakefield in 2015.

“Through his enthusiasm for business innovation, he will bring great value to our business and customers,” said Colliers’ Managing Director for China Tammy Tang.

Yan’s appointment comes after Colliers’ Asia Markets Snapshot: Capital Markets and Investment Services report last month highlighted that transactions of investment properties in the China capital reached $5.1 billion in value during the first quarter of 2019, up 50 percent from the last three months of 2018.

Counting on Expertise to Drive Business

Yan will be looking to increase Colliers’ share of the spoils in north China, where the company has offices in Xi’an, Shenyang, Zhengzhou and Tianjin, in addition to Beijing.

Yan says that the ability of his new employer, and the industry as a whole, to achieve that expansion may depend on an awareness of new technologies that could re-shape the industry. “In the upcoming era of artificial intelligence, we should pay close attention to how new technologies can change the commercial real estate sector,” he said in a statement.

A member of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, Yan earned his EMBA from the University of Texas at Arlington, and was a director at CBRE from 2008 until 2012 before moving on to DTZ.

According to his new employer, Yan’s professional knowledge and innovative thinking throughout his career have helped clients to achieve cost-effective and flexible real estate solutions.