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. 

Sam joined Alter Domus in 2016 as Senior Manager in the Jersey Real Estate Fund Administration Services team with over 10 years’ experience of fund administration and reporting. Sam is responsible for the delivery of accounting and reporting services for a range of alternative fund structures, including real estate and debt, for institutional and entrepreneurial clients. In addition, Sam is involved with the AIFMD and FATCA reporting requirements for Jersey clients.
 
Before joining Alter Domus, Sam was an associate director with UBS for 4 years where he was responsible for the relationship management, administration and provision of accounting services to a number of private equity, real estate and infrastructure fund structures across multiple regulated jurisdictions. Sam’s previous roles involved working on key real estate clients including a leading independent property Asset and Fund Manager specialising in commercial and residential real estate investment across the UK and continental Europe, a global real estate Fund Manager focused on open ended long-income structures and various primary UBS Global Real Estate products.
 
Sam is a member of the Education Committee for the Association of Real Estate Funds and a Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Kerri is a Fund Manager within the UK Real Estate team of Aberdeen Standard Investments¹ (ASI), managing 2 funds - the HBOS UK Property Fund (an OEIC that holds mainly direct assets but also real estate securities and cash) and the property component of the Halifax Managed Income Fund.  Kerri’s previous roles at ASI include Deputy Fund Manager of the £3bn² SWIP Property Trust and Investment Manager on the UK Balanced Property Trust, a listed Investment Trust.

She has 23 years of experience within the commercial real estate market and prior to joining ASI in 2003 was Investment Manager at Royal London Asset Management for 4 years 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 Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the IPF and is an FCA Approved Person.

 

^{1 Aberdeen Standard Investments/Aberdeen Asset Management/Scottish Widows Investment Partnership}

^{2 Approximate NAV in 2014}

Sarah Cockburn is a fund manager in the property team, and is head of unit linked property funds. She joined us in 2008 from Akeler (formerly Macquarie Goodman/Arlington) where she worked on the logistics fund. Prior to that, Sarah worked as a fund manager for Aviva investors. She studied Real Estate Management at Oxford Brookes University, is a Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and has 19 years’ industry experience.

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. 

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.