Education & Training Committee Biographies

Darren is Chair of the AREF Education & Training Committee. He is a Partner in CMS UK's Funds and Indirect Real Assets team. He is qualified in Australia and England, and has been practising law in London since 1999.

 

Darren has acted on a large and varied number of real assets transactions, often with an international element. He now focuses on structuring transactions through indirect vehicles such as companies, limited partnerships, unit trusts and offshore vehicles. He advises on UK and international fund establishments, joint ventures, corporatised asset sales and acquisitions and also advises investors looking to invest in UK, pan-European and global funds. 

Charles Crowe is a managing director at PGIM Real Estate.  Based in London, Charles has been been part of a team that has built a long term investment management business with AUM of c. £1.1bn and £0.8bn of further committed capital with exciting growth prospects. The team has introduced 13 new UK pension fund clients to the company and established strong relationships with all the major UK and European consultants. 
 
Prior to joining PGIM Real Estate in 2009, Charles was a senior member of the UBS Global Asset Management UK Real Estate business and a member of its UK Investment Committee. He was Head of Transactions, transacting over £2 billion of assets for both core and opportunity funds, and investment adviser to the UBS Secure Income Property Fund.  
 
Charles has over 20 years of real estate industry experience has worked as an investment surveyor in both the UK and Continental European real estate markets. He also has considerable asset management experience. 

Steven Devaney is a Director in the UK Research team at CBRE with a capital markets remit. He joined CBRE in August 2022 after a fifteen year career in higher education. Prior to working for CBRE, he was an Associate Professor at the University of Reading, teaching real estate valuation and investment, and he has also been a Senior Lecturer at City, University of London, and a Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen. He holds a PhD from the University of Reading, awarded in 2010, and has researched widely on topics connected with the liquidity and pricing of private real estate investments. Before academia, he worked as a researcher at Investment Property Databank (IPD).

Kasia Dziewulska has 20 years’ experience in Client Care and Research, and has been at CBRE since 2013. In her role, Kasia has strategic client responsibility within Research, including direct oversight of global and regional client relationships.  

She provides client led leadership ensuring that clients benefit from CBRE’s in-house intelligence, thought leadership and data products. She closely collaborates with regional Client Care programs and is deeply passionate about CBRE becoming a true strategic advisor wherever the clients are based or expanding to.

Following a career in capital markets Research, since 2006 Kasia has been involved in client management and business development, working with institutional and private equity clients. Kasia was a Business Development Director at PPR (now part of CoStar) where she was responsible for growing global client relationships and where she gained a wide exposure to North American investors and institutions.  

Prior to that, she was a Global Client Management Director at DTZ and a member of Corporate Finance Executive Board. She designed and implemented client management programs at the regional and global level working closely with all business lines. She was directly responsible for top 20 clients and also developed a unique client selection and review process to ensure the business focus on key growth relationships.

Patrick Groves joined CMS (formerly Nabarro) in 2011 and is a Partner in their Funds and Indirect Real Assets team in London. He advises managers and investors on all aspects of indirect transactions, with an emphasis on fund structuring and advisory work across the real estate, private equity, debt and alternatives space.

Kerri has worked in the commercial real estate industry for over 25 years, 22 of which have been in fund management.  She has spent the last 19 years with abrdn, during which time she has managed a variety of fund types and sizes.  She has most recently been managing the £1.6bn UK Commercial Property REIT and, prior to that, was concurrently managing 3 funds with differing strategies totalling £3.7bn.

During the period of market stress caused by the GFC, she was Deputy Fund Manager of the £3bn SWIP Property Trust, and was heavily involved in setting and implementing a significant acquisition strategy in the 5 years from 2009. Prior to joining abrdn in 2003, she spent 4 years at Royal London Asset Management, where her role had a development focus.

Kerri holds a BSc in Land Economics (Distinction) from the University of Paisley as well as the Investment Property Forum (IPF) Diploma.  She is a member of the RICS and is an FCA Approved Person.

Lucinda joined the Real Estate Solutions Team at Schroders Capital in March 2023.

Prior this, she worked as Senior Fund Manager at LaSalle Global Partner Solutions, looking after UK mandates investing in unlisted real estate fund investments.

Lucinda originally joined LaSalle (then Jones Lang Wootton Fund Management) in 1997 and held a number of roles during that time, including Fund Manager, Regional Director and Associate Director.   In 2001 Lucinda took a career break to raise a family and returned to LaSalle in 2005. 

Prior to LaSalle, Lucinda began her career at Asda Property Holdings plc in 1994 as an asset manager.

Lucinda is a Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. She holds a BSc (Hons) in Urban Estate Management from the University of Westminster and an MSc in Property Investment from City University.

Jeremy has seventeen years’ experience in the commercial and residential property markets. He joined Schroders in January 2015 as part of the Real Estate Investment Management team where he is responsible for UK commercial market analysis, forecasting and risk modelling. Prior to joining Schroders, Jeremy was Research Manager at Land Securities plc, and a Research Director and Fund Advisor at Invista REIM.

Jeremy began his real estate career as a researcher at Investment Property Databank (IPD). He is an Investment Management Certificate (IMC) holder and holds a BSocSc (Hons) in Economics from Birmingham University and an MSC in Operational Research from London School of Economics.

Emma is a partner in the real estate group, advising on a wide range of commercial property transactions but with a focus on advising real estate funds and real estate private equity funds on high-value and complex investments, lettings and developments.

Laura joined Mayfair Capital (now Swiss Life Asset Managers UK) in 2015, during which time she progressed to the role of Fund Manager for MCPUT. Laura became Fund Manager of the Property Income Trust for Charities in 2024. Her role involves formulating and implementing fund investment strategy, investor reporting and portfolio analysis, as well as overseeing transactional activity and undertaking asset management initiatives.

 Laura has over 12 years’ experience in commercial property, having previously worked at Lambert Smith Hampton in the Investment team.

 Laura has a degree in Physiological Sciences from the University of Oxford, and an MSc in Real Estate Management from Oxford Brookes University. She has also completed the Investment Management Certificate, is FCA authorised and is a member of the RICS.

Tim Trott is Corporate Services Senior Manager at Alter Domus UK. Tim has worked in the alternative investments industry on and offshore for over 15 years and is a Fellow of the ACCA with over 10 years PQE.
Tim brings experience of the industry as a whole having sat on numerous real estate boards as well as providing regulatory services such as depositary under the AIFMD and FCA regulated operator to collective investment schemes in the real estate sector.
He is also a member of the Investment Property Forum and attends events throughout the year in order to keep abreast of developments in the industry.

Responsible for quantitative analysis and implementations for FIL Real Estate funds. Look after portfolio risk and return forecasts by combining lease modelling and market research, contribute to acquisition/disposition deal analysis, tenant default monitoring, ad hoc analysis for pitch/client queries/fund management. Involved in various ESG initiatives such as helping to identify ESG data platform for the team, helping to screen major physical climate risk assessment providers from model validation perspective, etc. Ongoing effort in innovation and efficiency improvement by coding up bespoke solutions that interact with and leverage market leading technologies.

Clare is responsible for all aspects of the planning, development and execution of the marketing strategy for AREF. 

Clare leads on event management, liaising with committees and members to schedule, plan and deliver an effective events calendar for the association.  She also has overall responsibility for brand, as well as the design, development and production of marketing across both digital and offline channels, including the website.