Angus McNaughton, former CEO of Vicinity Centres, has joined the board of The GPT Group. McNaughton takes on the role of non-executive director in November. He was CEO of Vicinity for two years until December 2017. McNaughton was previously managing director of Colonial First State Property before leading the merger betweenNovion Property Group and Federation Centres, which became Vicinity. Brendan Crotty will step down from GPT’s board in November after nine years. Crotty was recently named inaugural chair of the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation.
Architectus has launched an urban design and planning offering in Melbourne, and appointed principal Dean Thornton to lead the growing team. Thornton has previously worked with Jacobs, HASSELL, Meinhardt and Development Victoria on city-shaping projects.
iProsperity Group, an advisor for high net worth Asian investors, has appointed John Landerer CBE AM as chairman. Landerer is the founder of Landerer & Company, a law firm specialising in commerce, real estate and litigation. The appointment comes as iProsperity exchanges on the sale of the five-star Pullman Park hotel in East Melbourne. The company says it is on a “growth trajectory towards $10 billion of assets under management by 2020”.
Commercial property finance specialist Stamford Capital has appointed Marcus Elsum as a board advisor. Elsum was previously executive director of funds management with Challenger Limited, COO at Ashe Morgan and head of structured finance at UBS.
Knight Frank has appointed Ed Wright as its new director of commercial sales, capital markets. Wright moves across from RPG Real Estate where he helped established the infill development site sales division. Wright also worked with CBRE.
Kevin Parker has been appointed development director at Growland. Parker, who was previously project director with Gallagher Jeffs, has worked on some of Melbourne’s most iconic projects, including the first two stages of $700 million Queens Place, South Yarra’s $100 million Lucia Apartments and Aura apartments in Melbourne’s CBD.