Nuveen Promotes Louise Kavanagh to CIO, Fund Management Head for APAC 

Global investment manager Nuveen on Friday announced a renewed leadership line-up in Asia Pacific for its real estate platform, part of a broader global shift towards a sector-based organisation model.

The subsidiary of US financial services provider TIAA promoted Louise Kavanagh to the dual role of head of funds management and chief investment officer for Asia Pacific, overseeing the Nuveen Real Estate business in the region.

Hong Kong-based Kavanagh, currently the company’s managing director for Asia Pacific real estate, will now be part of Nuveen’s strategy-setting Global Executive Leadership Team. She will continue to oversee the fund manager’s Asia Pacific Cities Strategy, which targets assets in urban areas positioned for demographic and structural growth.

“I am excited to take on the expanded role and continue working with my colleagues to drive consistent outperformance in investments for our clients leveraging both our global and local investment expertise,” Kavanagh said. “I believe 2021 holds many opportunities for active management as Asia continues to lead the pandemic recovery.”

At Home in Hong Kong

Before joining Nuveen in 2017, Kavanagh spent four years as a director and fund manager at Invesco in Hong Kong and four years as a director and head of acquisitions and asset management at Deutsche Bank in the city.

She is a 1997 graduate of Western Sydney University with a Bachelor of Commerce in property economics.

As part of the leadership refresh, Nuveen announced that Rick Marston will assume the title of head of Australian transactions with an additional regional office sector role. He will report to Kavanagh.

Marston most recently spent two years as head of asset management for Australia. Before that he held the same post for TH Real Estate, which subsequently was rebranded as Nuveen Real Estate.

Marston’s experience also includes stints at Invesco, AMP Capital Investors and Dexus Property Group, all in Sydney, where he had earned a bachelor’s degree in real estate from the University of Technology. He began his career in 2007 as a property analyst for Grosvenor in London.

Data Centre Reinforcement

Also on Friday, Nuveen announced the hiring of Jing Zhou as senior director in the alternatives and strategic transactions team for data centre solutions, where she will contribute to the growth and management of Nuveen Real Estate’s alternative platform.

Based in Hong Kong, Zhou is a former director in the data centre solutions specialty group within CBRE’s advisory and transaction services business in Asia Pacific. She will report to Carsten Kebeddies, Asia Pacific managing director and head of alternatives and strategic transactions.

The latest personnel moves follow a series of senior appointments that included the promotion of Shu Watanabe to head of Japan real estate transactions in December. Watanabe was previously director of capital transactions for Asia, based in Singapore.

“Despite a year which saw significant disruption from COVID-19, we are proud to be able to continue to expand the Nuveen team to better service our growing base of both institutional and private clients in the Asia Pacific region,” said Simon England-Brammer, head of Nuveen Asia Pacific.

Nuveen had $1.1 trillion in assets under management as of 30 September 2020 and operations in 27 countries.