Scott Butler has stepped into the CEO’s role with Highstreet Ventures, with Christina Wilson becoming president. (Courtesy Highstreet)

Founder and president Scott Butler has taken on the role of chief executive officer at Kelowna’s Highstreet Ventures LI, with Christina Wilson stepping up into the president’s position.

Wilson joined Highstreet as a development coordinator seven years ago, bringing her background in building engineering technology and project management to the business.

She quickly climbed the ranks to become development manager in March 2016, then soon after that, director of development. In January 2018, the role was upgraded to vice-president, development and sales.

Butler had held the president’s role since 2010.

Fiascaris takes APAC role at Oxford

Oxford Properties Group named Alessandro Fiascaris senior vice-president, Asia-Pacific. Fiascaris will be based in Singapore and will lead Oxford’s Asia-Pacific business and team.

He joins Oxford from Blackstone, where he had spent his entire career to date. Most recently he was a managing director in Singapore.

He holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics and theoretical physics from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

White becomes executive vice-president at CBRE

Lauren White has been named executive vice-president at CBRE, the second woman in CBRE Canada’s history to achieve the post.

An infill redevelopment specialist and co-founder of CBRE’s Land Services Group, White has consistently ranked within the Top-10 sales professionals in CBRE’s Toronto North Office.

She has transacted over $4.2 billion in land dispositions along with her team since beginning her real estate career in 2006.

White has also volunteered with multiple organizations, including the Urban Land Institute (ULI), where she previously co-chaired the programs committee. In 2016, she was nominated to join ULI’s Women’s Leadership Initiative Championship Team.

Cucuz appointed to Northland advisory board

Sasha Cucuz, a co-founder and partner at Greybrook Capital and CEO of Greybrook Securities Inc., has been named to the advisory board of Northland Properties.

Cucuz also co-chairs Greybrook’s investment committee and project management committees.

As the former president of Greybrook Health, he played a key role in several portfolio acquisitions including MacuHealth, Bruder Healthcare and TearLab, as well as the launch of Greenbrook TMS.

In 2020, he led the launch of Delos Canada, as well as Greybrook’s investment in Delos Living, LLC.

Directorships include the boards of Greenbrook, Greyspring Apartments and Delos Canada.

Northland Properties is Canada’s largest privately owned hospitality company, known for brands such as Sandman Hotel Group, The Sutton Place Hotels, Moxie’s Grill & Bar, Chop Steakhouse & Bar and the NHL’s Dallas Stars.

Marchand joins BGO as managing director

BentallGreenOak announced Daniel Marchand has joined its global capital-raising team as managing director, capital raising and IR. He’ll report jointly to Paul Mouchakkaa and Julie Wong.

He will be based in Montreal, but will split his time between there and Toronto.

Marchand began his career over 25 years ago and has been involved in capital-raising, product development and executive leadership across national and global firms, most recently as head of sales and marketing at Trez Capital.

Preceding Trez, Marchand was SVP, global business development at Nuveen Investments of Chicago, where he was instrumental in the firm’s expansion efforts outside the U.S.

Marchand held a similar role at Lazard Asset Management, opening its Canadian office, and was also vice-president of the consulting solutions group at RBC Global Asset Management.

He holds a degree in economics from Concordia University in Montreal.

AY creates Vancouver valuation, advisory group

Jessica Toppazzini has been appointed senior vice-president and practice leader, British Columbia, valuation advisory services, at Avison Young. (Courtesy Avison Young)

Avison Young has established a valuation and advisory team in Vancouver, which will be led by Jessica Toppazzini, senior vice-president and practice leader British Columbia, valuation and advisory services.

Toppazzini brings a decade of experience in guiding business strategies and complex valuation services, with an emphasis on expropriation, development land, purpose-built rental housing and social housing.

Joining Toppazzini are Steven Caldecott, senior vice-president, and Victoria Steele, senior valuation consultant.

Caldecott brings over 12 years of valuation experience across a wide range of property types, with specialization in industrial properties, including large format distribution and cold storage facilities.

Steele brings strength in research and analysis of developments in industrial, multiresidential, commercial retail and office properties.

Rounding out the team of five are Antonio Balogh, junior appraiser, and Matt Chin, data analyst.

Dimakarakos hired by IMC

Institutional Mortgage Capital (IMC) has hired Peter Dimakarakos as managing director and portfolio manager, reporting to Bob Fitzpatrick, the managing director and head of core and core-plus investments and client relationships.

As a member of the senior leadership team, Dimakarakos will co-lead IMC’s origination platform alongside Darren Schmidt, managing director and head of high-yield investments. He will co-manage the Active Mortgage Fund, IMC’s open-ended strategy focused on core and core-plus commercial mortgage investments.

He brings more than 25 years of experience in investment and corporate banking, structured finance, commercial real estate and portfolio management.

He has held executive positions at several leading firms in the U.S. and Canada where he completed more than $25 billion of financing transactions. Most recently, Dimakarakos led the real estate debt business in Canada for Fiera Real Estate Investments.

Spafford, Jaffer move to Forum Equity Partners

Forum Equity Partners announced Greg Spafford as fund head and Kazeem Jaffer as head of finance of the Forum Real Estate Income and Impact Fund (REIIF).

Spafford will be responsible for driving REIIF’s portfolio and asset management strategy, with Jaffer responsible for financial management and reporting.

Prior to joining Forum, Spafford was managing director and senior portfolio manager for Manulife’s diversified, open-ended Canadian real estate funds. During his tenure at Manulife, fund AUM increased from $3 billion to over $4.4 billion and benchmark performance increased by a full quartile.

His experience also includes time at LaSalle Investment Management, Toronto Community Housing, Beutel Goodman and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

He holds a master of planning from Queen’s University and a BComm with Honours from Ryerson University. He is co-chair of REALPAC’s Fund Management Committee.

Jaffer previously held senior finance roles at Cushman & Wakefield, Venterra Reality and Brookfield Global Integrated Solutions. He began his career in public accounting with KPMG.

Jaffer is a CPA, CA and holds an executive MBA from the Ivey School of Business at Western Ontario and an honours bachelor of mathematics in chartered accountancy from the University of Waterloo.

Nine new partners at CentreCourt

CentreCourt has named nine of the company’s long-standing executives across all disciplines – acquisitions, finance, sales and marketing, development and construction – as partners.

The new partners follow on the heels of Gavin Cheung assuming the role of president and managing partner on Jan. 1.

As part of this milestone, the following additional executives have also become partners alongside Andrew Hoffman, Shamez Virani, Stephen Belgue and Cheung: Derek Deutsch, managing partner, chief operating officer; Bader Elkhatib, SVP acquisitions; Jacob Truglia, VP business lead; Jason Lam, SVP sales and marketing; Jonathan Levinoff, SVP finance; Joshua Currie, SVP construction; Mitch Gascoyne, SVP development; Nikola Ilic, SVP accounting;  Robert Barth, SVP construction.

Loots becomes senior director, sustainability at BOMA

BOMA has announced a new senior director, sustainability, Jani Loots.

Originally from South Africa, Loots is an architect with a research background in sustainable building design.

Over the past 15 years at a consulting engineering firm, Loots worked on a variety of existing building energy and sustainability projects, including helping clients achieve BOMA BEST and other building sustainability certifications.

Loots also played a direct role in shaping BOMA BEST 3.0.

More recently, Loots shifted her focus toward climate change mitigation and decarbonization strategies.

Salomon-Lima takes position at Broccolini

Broccolini has hired David Salomon-Lima as director, business development and real estate services.

He has 10 years of experience in the real estate industry, most notably in the roles of senior leasing manager and director, office leasing.

Grinke becomes VP people and culture at WWC

Western Wealth Capital has appointed Shauna Grinke to the new role of vice-president, people and culture.

Grinke’s career spans over 25 years, with senior-level roles in organizational and executive-level coaching and consulting, and extensive career experience at an executive level in high-growth, values-centric organizations.

She holds an MBA and post-graduate certification in strategic human resources.