Cushman & Wakefield has appointed Jon Hubbard, formerly of JLL, to head up its EMEA hotels and hospitality business.
Hubbard, who will start work at Cushman & Wakefield this summer, joins from JLL where he was head of investor services EMEA for its hotels and hospitality group. Current team lead, partner Richard Candey, will remain in a senior management role.
Before joining JLL in 2005, he was head of hotels at Atisreal (part of BNP Paribas), co-ordinating agency, advisory and valuation work across Europe.
Reporting to EMEA chief executive John Forrester, Hubbard will be responsible for leading and growing Cushman & Wakefield’s EMEA hospitality practice. He has nearly 30 years of EMEA hotel market experience.
Hubbard has been closely involved in transactions such as the disposal of the 42-strong UK Marriott portfolio to ADIA, the development and sale of the W Leicester Square, London, and has been advising Qatari Diar on the conversion of the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square to a luxury hotel.
Forrester said: “Jon’s arrival shows how serious we are about building up our EMEA hospitality business into a market leader and he is uniquely qualified to deliver this vision. I’m delighted he has joined us to lead a programme of immediate further investment and recruitment in specialist areas to strengthen this part of our EMEA business. We are executing our strategy to grow our service offering across all of the asset classes that our clients require our support to navigate.”
Hubbard said: “This is a very exciting move for me. Whilst the existing hospitality team at Cushman & Wakefield has been doing some fantastic work, there is a clear opportunity to further grow the platform across EMEA and, indeed, globally, to better serve the company’s client base. The hotels sector has become an established real estate investment sector in its own right, for which the mid- and long-term prospects are extremely strong and the opportunity for us is clear. I am looking forward to working closely with Richard Candey and the rest of the established team.”
Candey said: “I have been working with the business to identify areas for strategic future growth and Jon’s appointment will enable the sector team to execute on this strategy.”
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