Appointed as the Development Director for Rockcastle Poland Sp z.o.o, (A wholly-owned subsidiary of the retail-focused listed Property REIT Rockcastle Global Real Estate, based in Warsaw Poland), tasked with amongst other things the establishment of a new office which was established to spearhead and execute the company's growth ambitions and strategy into Central and Eastern Europe.
Career Highlight: Part of the core Rockcastle Poland Sp z.o.o team who in a period of 4 years successfully assembled and redeveloped a formidable Retail Portfolio of over 16 shopping centres across multiple countries in Central Eastern Europe.
Primary Responsibilities:
Reporting to the London-based CEO and as a member of the Executive Committee, my initial responsibility was that of establishing the new CEE Office based in Warsaw, Poland, including negotiating new office leases, designing and fit-out of the new offices, establishing a new team of staff including project managers, asset managers and financial staff to support and manage the day-to-day operations of the CEE head office and portfolio of CEE retail centres.
Aside from setting up and establishing the new CEE office in Warsaw, the core mandate of the Development Director was to extract value and ensure the ongoing growth and value proposition of all the assets being bought into the portfolio. This was achieved through various means including but not limited to the complete redevelopment of assets, expansion of assets to increase GLA and associated income, as well as re-looking the tenant mix with the asset managers in order to optimize tenant size and mix in each retail centre. The ongoing technical maintenance and management as well as the installation and relocation of key tenants within each asset also fell within the scope of the Development Director role.
Director Roles & Responsibilities:
- Prepared OPEX and CAPEX budgets in preparation for and understanding of, the offers to be made on any potential acquisitions;
- Prepared, presented and reported on feasibilities for new developments;
- Prepared and reported on the ongoing project based P&L for all developments;
- Prepared, presented and reported on the ongoing yields/returns on all the developments and for the portfolio as a whole;
- Prepared, presented and reported on the progress and project status including time, cost and quality for individual developments as well as the portfolio as a whole;
- Ensured the development teams for each region were sufficiently staffed and qualified;
- Recruitment of local development managers.
- Senior-most liaison and company representative tasked with managing key stakeholders including local governments and JV partners, negotiating land-use agreements, planning and permitting agreements and any other local and or national approvals or agreements required for the implementation and execution of the proposed developments.
- Represented the organisation at various industry sector forums and conferences including annual attendance at both the MAPIC and MIPIM retail conferences in France.
Project Related Roles and Responsibilities:
Leading a development team of 8 people, the Development Director fulfilled an oversight role of all real estate projects in the portfolio. Additional responsibility for:
- Technical due diligence on all buildings prior to acquisition;
- Appointing and leading design and engineering teams for the redevelopment of the assets.;
- Appointing and leading the planning and permitting teams and processes;
- Managing an in-house team of 5 Development Managers based in the various regions;
- Negotiating, reviewing and signing-off on all Professional Services Agreements i.e. architects, cost consultants.
- Negotiating, reviewing and signing off on all General/Main Contractor Construction agreements;
- Attending high-level meetings with various political figures, and negotiating the necessary planning and permitting rights for the development redevelopment rights.
- Retail assets in the portfolio ranged in size and scale from 26 000m2 to 92 700m2 (acquired, redevelopment design, planning and permitting and execution through completion).
- 16 successful acquisitions were concluded between 2015 - 2019
- 11 in Poland, 2 in Hungary, 2 in the Czech Republic and 1 in Lithuania (a detailed breakdown of these transactions, size, scale, transaction value are available on request.
Reason for Leaving:
Promoted to Development Director for Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia following the merger between NEPI & Rockcastle Global.
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