People on the Move – 8 December 2015
Changes at Reed Property Group; Infrastructure Victoria appoints CEO; new general manager at Ascendas; GHD expands its Defence team; Raine & Horne grows its international division; TH Real Estate appoints head of research; Bates Smart promotes three studio directors.
Queensland development company Reed Property Group has a new CEO with former head of Development Jay Emmerton (pictured) stepping into the role to oversee both the development arm of the organisation as well as its construction arm, RCQ Construction. Before joining Reed, Emmerton worked for Mirvac, Urbex and Baulderstone Hornibrook. There have also been other recent changes at Reed with group chief financial officer Mischa Leonard leaving the company to pursue opportunities overseas. He will be replaced by Elizabeth Walker as CFO. She previously worked for Consolidated Pastoral Company and was the group chief financial officer and treasurer of Dennis Group. And in the company’s development team, civil engineer Remi Rafter has joined as development manager and former Residential Sales executive Nick Criss has been promoted to assistant development manager.
Michel Masson has been appointed as the inaugural CEO at the recently created Infrastructure Victoria. Masson has more than 20 years’ experience in senior transport and infrastructure roles in Europe and Australia. In 2005 he joined Keolis as head of Finance and Operations for the International Division, where he was responsible for leading public transport operations in seven countries and held various non-executive director positions in UK and German rail franchises. He was appointed CEO of Yarra Trams in 2009 and helped lead the development of Keolis Downer throughout Australia, before joining the Calibre group in 2014 to lead its transport infrastructure business.
Ascendas Funds Management has appointed Matthew Meredith as general manager in Australia, responsible for the overall management of the fund, including property assets of the Ascendas REIT Australia trust. Meredith was most recently head of Industrial at AMP Capital. Prior to this he spent two years in Singapore with AMP Capital as head of Office & Industrial Asia. Prior to joining AMP Capital in 2005 he was senior asset manager and investment manager (Industrial) with Colonial First State Property.
Engineering, architecture, environmental and construction services company GHD has expanded its Defence capability with the hiring of Damian Drain as Defence Infrastructure manager. Drain previously held a senior project management and delivery role in the Department of Defence.
Raine & Horne International has appointed Bill Russell as general manager International. Russell was previously with REA Group and English-speaking real estate portal Juwai. He will continue as head of international development at Juwai in conjunction with his new role at Raine & Horne.
Harry Y Tan has joined TH Real Estate as head of Research, Asia-Pacific, based in the Singapore office and reporting to Chris Reilly, managing director, Asia-Pacific. Tan was formerly at Grosvenor Limited in Hong Kong, where he has been head of Research since 2007.
Architecture firm Bates Smart has promoted three of its employees to studio directors to strengthen leadership teams in its Melbourne and Sydney studios. Basil Richardson has worked on design projects including the TransGrid Head Office, the Ainsworth Building UNSW, P177 North Sydney and 130 Elizabeth Street. Steve Jones brings his international experience to complex projects and Robert Graham specialises in developing innovative solutions for large-scale projects.