ESR Elevates Josh Daitch to Investment Boss, Matthew Lawson to Chief Operating Officer

ESR has promoted longtime fund manager Josh Daitch to chief investment officer and tapped ESR Australia finance chief Matthew Lawson as the Asia-focused industrial giant’s chief operating officer.

In his new role, Daitch will oversee fund management, capital raising, research and analytics, and new product creation, Hong Kong-listed ESR said Tuesday in a release. He most recently served as ESR’s head of capital and new economy fund management.

Lawson, meanwhile, will support ESR’s co-CEOs, Stuart Gibson and Jeffrey Shen, and work closely with the business unit leadership in the delivery of key growth initiatives in his newly created role. Both of the appointments took effect on Tuesday.

“We want to congratulate Josh and Matt on their new and expanded roles across the group,” Gibson and Shen said. “The promotions reflect the immense depth of talent across the organisation which continues to serve as a defining core competitive advantage for us.”

Goldman Alum

Daitch joined ESR in 2018 and has nearly three decades of real estate investment experience, including at Chicago-based Mesirow, where he founded the real estate investment management division, and the Archon Group, Goldman Sachs’s real estate management subsidiary, where he was part of the original team that Goldman acquired from the J.E. Robert Companies in 1996.

Daitch earned a bachelor’s degree in finance and real estate from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Northwestern University. He will continue to be based in ESR’s Singapore office.

Before joining ESR in 2020, Lawson was executive director and chief financial officer of Hongkong & Shanghai Hotels Ltd, a hotel owner-operator under The Peninsula brand. In his earlier career, Lawson served as a managing director at JP Morgan and head of the investment bank’s real estate practice in Asia, based in Hong Kong.

The new post will see the University of Queensland grad relocate from Sydney to Singapore, where he will seek to optimise ESR’s operating capabilities and deliver a more streamlined business and enhanced cost structure.

Leadership Boost

With $150 billion in assets under management, Hong Kong-based ESR has been fine-tuning its leadership team in 2023.

In April, the group promoted company veteran Chang Rui Hua as managing director for business management and investment at ESR Hong Kong, with duties to include leading the company’s China REIT initiative. Her appointment came after ESR won approval in March from the Hong Kong stock exchange to list a trust holding a set of mainland warehouses on the Shanghai bourse.

With Chang’s shift to the Greater China-focused role, Marilyn Tan, a longtime executive in ESR’s ARA Asset Management division, took over as the group’s head of investor relations.