The new year continues to yield a flurry of top level personnel moves in Asia Pacific’s real estate community, including mainland China heavyweight Poly Developments naming a new chairman. There are also top level moves by Manulife Investment Management, Greystar, Google and more in this week’s roundup.
Top five mainland developer Poly Developments and Holdings Group announced on 14 January that it has appointed Kong Junfeng as chairman of the company’s board of directors, replacing Song Guangju. Kong, who first joined Poly Group in 1996, has been working for the Chinese state-run conglomerate as deputy general manager of its real estate development division since 2019 and had previously served as the company’s chief economist and chief accountant.
Manulife Investment Management said on 12 January that it has hired Marc Franklin as managing director and senior portfolio manager for asset allocation, based in Hong Kong. Franklin joins the fund management division of Canada’s Manulife from NN Investment Partners in the Netherlands, where he had served as head of the firm’s flexible multi-asset strategy for more than two years. Franklin previously worked in Hong Kong for JP Morgan Asset Management and Conning.
Charmaine Cheuk has joined Greystar in Hong Kong as a managing director in the multi-family specialist’s portfolio management division. In her new role, Cheuk will work closely with Greystar senior managing directors Adam Pillay and Ed Boyd to manage Greystar portfolio for the firm’s investment products and strategies across Asia Pacific. The new role comes after Cheuk previously headed up the real estate advisory practice for Hong Kong and north Asia at financial services firm CohnReznick and the NYU graduate also has previous experience with CBRE Global Investors (now CBRE Investment Management), AEW, Alyssa Partners and Lehman Brothers.
Darren Ansell has recently joined the Global Infrastructure team at Google, where he will be working on Asia Pacific data centre strategy and acquisitions for the tech giant. Based in Singapore, Ansell joins Google after more than three years as a principal with Xander Investment Management in the city. Earlier the University of Auckland graduate had served with Virtuous Retail and PGIM Real Estate in the Southeast Asian financial hub.
EQT-backed data centre platform EdgeConneX announced on 12 January that it has brought on board former Lendlease executive Sam Lee as managing director for market and commercial development in Asia Pacific, as part of a string of senior hires by the Virginia-based firm. The hire ends Lee’s stint as head of Lendlease’s data centre platform after less than two years, with just one project having been launched during that period. Prior to joining Lendlease, Lee had served in senior roles with Global Switch and Digital Realty.
Russell Lam has been promoted to executive director with the capital markets team at Colliers in Hong Kong, after more than seven years with the investment services division of the property consultancy. Lam takes his step up after advising on a number of signifiant building trades over the past year as Hong Kong’s real estate market recovers from a nearly three-year dry spell. In addition to his experience at Colliers, Lam also spent more than four years with CBRE in the city.
Colliers said on 11 January that it has promoted Michael Bowens to head of industrial for Asia, a newly created role reporting to Sam Harvey-Jones, who took over the chief operating officer position in November. At the same time that Bowens returned to the world of sheds, the company promoted Abhishek Bajpai to managing director for occupiers services in Asia, and named Lynus Pook head of industrial for Singapore.
Simon C Graham has joined Cushman & Wakefield as senior communications manager for Greater China with the company’s business development services division, according to a LinkedIn update. Graham joins the property services firm in Hong Kong after two years consulting with C&W, with the University of Lancaster graduate having previously served as marketing and communications lead for Asia Pacific with the Conference Board until mid-2019.
If you know of other Asia real estate professionals changing their jobs, getting promoted or just doing something exciting, please contact us here at Mingtiandi.
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