Investors’ Outreach Initiative: Real Assets Roundtable on “ESG as the New Age Mantra”

Sigrid is the Chief Executive Officer of Asia Pacific Real Assets Association (APREA). Based in Singapore, she is responsible for overseeing the strategic direction, initiatives and operations of the association across Asia Pacific. Under her leadership, APREA repositioned to an industry trade group focusing on real estate and infrastructure.

Sigrid joined APREA’s executive team in January 2019.

Prior to APREA, she served as Managing Director of Asia Pacific Research and Advisory Services of Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) from 2010 through 2018, where she was responsible for research, thought leadership, strategy formulation and client management.  Before relocating to Singapore, she was based in Washington, D.C. and led C&W’s U.S. research group in the Mid-Atlantic region, overseeing all aspects of market research activities in the Washington, DC; Virginia; Suburban Maryland, Baltimore; and Philadelphia areas. Prior to joining C&W, Sigrid served as a Senior Economist for the National Association of Realtors (NAR). In that position, she developed NAR’s office, warehouse, retail, multi-family housing, and international research programs.

A recognized expert in global economic, public policy and real estate issues, Sigrid is a frequent speaker at industry events.  Her commentary on commercial and residential real estate markets is also regularly featured in a wide array of global publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, New York Times and Reuters. Additionally, she has made several television appearances on financial networks and radio such as CNBC, Bloomberg, CNN, National Public Radio and Channel News Asia.

Sigrid holds a Master of Business Administration from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and a Master’s degree in Economics from Pennsylvania State University. She is a member of several civic groups including the Rotary Club of Raffles City in Singapore, where she has served in various leadership positions, and serves in the Executive Committee of the Crohn’s & Colitis Society of Singapore.

Piet’s experience bridges theory and practice. He is a widely respected teacher and researcher specialized in real estate markets, finance, and investment. He is also the co-founder of three companies (GPR, Finance Ideas, GRESB), and has had (advisory) board positions with organizations like EPRA, IPD, NAREIT, Redevco, Oppenheim Immobilien, among others. He has extensive experience as an international workshop and conference organizer, facilitator and speaker, both for industry and academic audiences.

Piet Eichholtz is Professor of Real Estate and Finance at Maastricht University and founding partner at Finance Ideas, where he is active in the Institutional Investor / ESG practice.

Piet´s research is on the edge between the built environment and financial markets. He studies real estate investment practices and performance, real estate and ESG, urban development and housing. He has published in journals such as the Review of Financial Studies, the American Economic Review, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Real Estate Economics, etc. He also publishes in newspapers and maganizes, and is often interviewed about the real estate markets. He is the co-author of the leading graduate real estate textbook: Commercial Real Estate Analysis and Investment. Besides his research, he is also an award-winning educator.

Piet has also built up a solid reputation outside of academia, and has co-founded the real estate index provider GPR as well as GRESB, besides being a (advisory) board member of organizations such as IPD, the KLM pension fund, Loyalis, Redevco, Oppenheim Immobilien, the  Dutch construction workers’ pension fund, and Bouwfonds.

Piet has extensive experience in discussion and conference facilitation, having chaired the annual European IPD conference and the IPE Real Assets conference for more than 10 years, as well as numerous other conferences and discussion fora, both off- and online, ranging from a few participants to over 1000. He has also been active in the organization of academic conferences such as the international conference of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association in 1998, the European Financial Management conference in 2014, and a long-run annual workshop in partnership with the National University of Singapore, MIT, and the University of Cambridge. He has an extensive global network, and is well-known both in academic circles and in the real estate and financial industries.

Academic positions

Professor of Real Estate and Finance, Maastricht University  1998 - now

Chairperson of the Finance Department, Maastricht University  2005 - 2014

Professor of Real Estate, University of Amsterdam    1996 - 2005

Assistant and Associate Professor of Finance, Maastricht University   1994 - 1998

Selected industry positions

Founding partner Finance Ideas  2004 - now

Secretary of the Board, MeJudice (the Dutch online forum for economic discussion)  2014 - now

Non-executive director, IPD   2007 - 2012

Member, NAREIT research council  2007 - 2012

Academic fellow, Urban Land Institute  2002 - 2009

Member, ABP Strategic Investment Policy Group   1989 - 1992

Selected societal and university services

2013 - 2017  Chairperson, Maastricht University’s Studium Generale Committee

Studium Generale is a key knowledge transfer podium between Maastricht University and civil society

2013 - now   Member and Chairperson, Editorial Advisory Board Observant

Observant of  Maastricht University’s weekly newspaper, published both on- and offline  

2004   Property Advisor, UN Good Offices Mission, Cyprus

During the most recent serious peace effort on Cyprus, Piet was a co-author of the Annan-II plan, with chief responsibility for the property market solutions relating to reunification. 

1998  Founder of the Amsterdam University MSc program in Real Estate Finance

Priyaranjan is Managing Director and Head of Singapore for Alvarium Investments. He also serves on the firm's Global Policy, Private Markets, Global Macro and ESG committees. Priyaranjan is a highly respected global real estate professional with almost 25 years of advisory and investing experience across 40+ markets in 20+ countries involving transactions of $10BN+.  He has lived and worked in India, US and Singapore.

A sustainability practitioner for over two decades, Esther published the first sustainability report in Singapore in 2008 and issued the first green bond by a Singapore company in 2017. Conferred the 2018 SDG Pioneer for Green Infrastructure and A Low Carbon Economy by the UN Global Compact, and named amongst 25 Trailblazing Women against Climate Change by Reuters in 2023 as well as the inaugural TIME100 Climate Leaders in Business 2023 list, Esther sits on the boards or advisory platforms of international organizations including:

• World Economic Forum Nature-Positive Cities Global Commission
• World Green Building Council Corporate Advisory Board Chairperson
• Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures
• UN PRI Real Estate Advisory Committee
• UN ESCAP Sustainable Business Network Executive Council
• Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Supervisory Board
• Urban Land Institute (ULI) Randall Lewis Center Advisory Board for Sustainability in Real Estate and ULI Asia Pacific Net Zero Council
• Asia Pacific Real Assets Association (APREA) Board of Directors and Chair of ESG Committee
• GRESB Foundation Board

She founded Women4Green and Youth4Climate networks to empower women and youths to champion climate action and sustainable development.

As the Deputy General Manager of China Overseas Commercial Properties CO., Ltd. (COCP), Angel Tang leads the assets management and leasing effort of COCP’s 6 million-square-meter Grade A office buildings across China and overseas, with her 14 years’ experience in the field of commercial real estate. 

As a flagship of the global commercial office asset management brand, COOC(China Overseas Office Capital)was established under Tang’s leadership, it has catapulted COCP’s Office assets business segment into a new phase of comprehensive brand development.

COOC has become one of the largest single ownership office building development brands in China, developing and operating Grade A office buildings across nearly 30 cities.

In order to capture the new trend of work style, smart working brand-OFFICEZIP was established to create a new office ecosystem with a variety of supporting formats for life and business, forming an ecological value circle with complementary customers and products with COOC, Officloud and Officare.

Mr Ryuta Takeuchi is responsible for JLL’s Capital Markets platform across Japan and works with the firm’s extended global Capital Markets team to facilitate inbound investment opportunities into Japan’s commercial real estate market and advise domestic capital owners on outbound investment.  He joins JLL from Mitsubishi Corporation where he was President and CEO of Diamond Reality Management Incorporated, its global real estate investment arm. For Mitsubishi Corporation, Mr Takeuchi oversaw assets under management of over US$8 billion through private real estate investment trusts (REITs) and private funds in Japan and other global markets in this position from 2021 to 2023.  Mr Takeuchi joined Mitsubishi Corporation in 1996 and held a variety of leadership positions including Head of Executive Management and Strategy Planning Office in its Urban Development Group, Managing Director and CEO of MC Asset Management in Europe. He was also Co-CEO of UBS-Mitsubishi Corporation General Partner – UBS- PREMF Limited, a joint venture private funds business with UBS.

Vincent van Bijleveld is director of the Global Real Estate Engagement Network, a collaboration of asset owners and managers that engages both listed and non-listed real estate funds, as the real estate sector is responsible for 40% of global carbon emissions and severely exposed to financial material physical and transition climate risks. Vincent is also managing consultant sustainable investing at Finance Ideas. With his team he has a consulting relation with about 30% of the top 50 Dutch pension funds and he works with these clients and other institutional investors on their sustainable and responsible investing policies, implementation, legislation and esg risk management. Previously Vincent has among others been a partner at one of the big global actuarial & investment consultants and worked for an institutional asset manager leading in sustainable investing.