Avison Young appoints principals; Savills promotes in Cambridge; Turley names placemaking lead

Kristian Williams is one of six new principals appointed by Avison Young. Williams, who has been with the firm for eight and a half years, according to his LinkedIn profile, is director of valuation consultancy in London. He is joined by James Crawford and Hannah Fiszpan, who also work in London, as well as Mark Harris and Chris Jones, both in Leeds, and Iain King, from the Glasgow office. Nick Walkley, principal and UK president at Avison Young, said: “These individuals will be well known to many clients for their outstanding work. Principalship is recognition of that and the contribution they can make to our leadership in a rapidly change real estate environment.”

Savills has appointed director Abigail Jones to lead the development team in its Cambridge office, having joined the firm 12 years ago. Savills said that alongside continuing to provide advice and consultancy for the sale and marketing of residential development land, she will be responsible for leading the development team and identifying opportunities for future growth. Jones, a registered valuer, works with a range of clients including private landowners, promoters and corporate institutions. She specialises in the Community Infrastructure Levy, strategic land and the education sector. She said: "I’m delighted to be taking this next step in my career."

Property planning and design advisor Turley has appointed Stephen Taylor to the newly created role of Placemaking Lead as it accelerates growth in this area. Taylor, who has led Turley’s national urban design team since 2016, has more than two decades of experience in masterplanning and design leadership. He will spearhead cross-service placemaking teams across Turley’s 15 UK and Ireland offices and has been asked by the firm to assemble and lead multi-service teams across the UK and Ireland where it operates. Earlier this month the independent adviser added a new director to its Environmental Impact Assessment team, hiring Bristol-based Alan Pearson.

Segro has appointed Susanne Schroeter-Cross to replace its outgoing chief financial officer Soument Das. The warehouse specialist announced at the end of April that Das, who joined in 2017, would retire to spend more time with his family and that it had started its search for a new CFO. Schroeter-Crossan will join the board as an executive director on 1 December and is currently the CFO of digital road freight and logistics business Sennder Technologies. Segro boss David Sleath said: "I am delighted that Susanne will be joining Segro at such an exciting time as we are set to build on our market-leading positions in the industrial, logistics and data centre sectors."

Global institutional investor L&G has named Dan Batterton head of housing in the UK as it plans to deploy around £500 million into the sector over the next two years. Batterton is promoted to lead housing investment across L&G’s Asset Management business and has more than 20 years of experience in the property sector. His expertise in portfolio strategy have helped to shape L&G’s long-term acquisition, development, sustainability, and operational plans for the residential sector. He has launched several investment strategies during his time at L&G, notably the Build-to-Rent platform in 2016, which has grown to over £4 billion and over 10,000 apartments across the UK.

Peter Denton, the former chief executive of Homes England, has been awarded a CBE as part of the King's Birthday Honours. Denton was handed the gong for services to housing and to major urban regeneration. He left Homes England earlier this year, having joined in 2021, and has 30 years of pan-European real estate experience. Before joining Homes England he led homes provider The Hyde Group. He said in a post on his LinkedIn page: "Every single day I experienced the collective effort of thousands of dedicated colleagues, partners, and public servants working tirelessly to deliver such homes, placemaking regeneration, and opportunity across this country."