Leading this week’s roundup of job changes, a legal industry veteran has taken on a real estate-focussed role at a British law firm that is ramping up its presence in Asia, while a Singaporean property group has announced a burst of board changes. Also in Mingtiandi’s rolodox, plenty of agency professionals are switching companies, while one facilities management expert is departing Shanghai to run housing at a Singaporean university. Read on for all this HR news and more.
Mark Stevens
has left Mayer Brown to join London-based international law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner as a partner in Hong Kong, the company announced. In the new role, he will build the firm’s real estate private equity and M&A services in Asia. Stevens, who was previously a partner at Chicago-based Mayer Brown for nearly 15 years, has an extensive track record advising clients on joint ventures, private equity investments and mergers and acquisitions.
Guy Daniel Harvey-Samuel and Tan Sri Dr Zulkumain bin Hj Awang have been appointed to the board of Wing Tai Holdings as Non-Executive Directors, the Singapore-listed property and lifestyle firm announced this month. In tandem with the move, James Lee Kim Wah has retired from the board as his 80th birthday approaches, after a more than 50-year career at the company. Harvey-Samuel (pictured) was group general manager and CEO of Singapore at HSBC until retiring in March of last year, and is now non-executive Chairman of HSBC Bank (Singapore). Tan Sri was an independent non-executive director of Wing Tai Malaysia until last November.
Chen Shengjie has been appointed as Chief Financial Officer of Sunshine 100 China Holdings, following the resignation of Xu Lianyi, the company announced last week. Aged 56, Chen was previously chairman of Zhongchang Big Data Corp Ltd from 2014 to 2015. The appointment marks the fourth new CFO in two years for the commercial and residential real estate developer backed by Warburg Pincus. Founded in 1993, the firm had its IPO in Hong Kong in 2014.
Sandeep Sharma
has taken on a new challenge as General Manager, Bangalore with Indian property developer Prestige Group. Before joining the Bangalore-based firm, the former colonel in the Indian Army was Associate Director at international brokerage Cushman & Wakefield, a position he held for five months after spending over two and a half years at Goldman Sachs as Account Director – CSRE @ Tenon.
Sunny Zheng
is now Sales Manager at Knight Frank China, based in Beijing, moving to the property agency after serving as Senior Manager at Colliers International in the Chinese capital for three and a half years. Zheng also worked as Sales Director at the Beijing representative office of Britain’s Barratt Homes, focussing on UK property services, after building up a team from scratch as Director of Barratt Homes for China.
Garrett Wang
has been promoted to Senior Operations Manager at Chinese co-working provider naked Hub, based in Shanghai. The University of New South Wales graduate steps up to his new role after holding the title of Operations Manager with the Gaw Capital-invested startup since December 2016. Wang joined the company in mid-2016 as a community manager after working at Hays and EcoSense in Shanghai, following marketing and management roles in Singapore.
Alvin Chin
is now Head, Housing and Auxiliary Services at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, relocating from Shanghai where he served as Director, Integrated Workplace Services – Asia Pacific at Nike. In his former role at the apparel brand, Chin was responsible for delivering integrated employee and facilities services, a position that drew on his nearly 11 years at property brokerage JLL in Singapore, Taipei and mainland China. Chin has also worked at Procter & Gamble as Facilities Manager, Singapore.
Lea Li
is now Assistant Manager, Markets at JLL based in Shanghai, taking on the new role this month. Li previously served as Senior Analyst at rival brokerage CBRE, focussing on transaction management in Shanghai since mid-2015. The graduate of Sichuan International Studies University also holds a master’s from Royal Holloway, University of London.
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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