APREA #BreakTheBias Regional Forum: Women in Leadership

Sigrid is the Chief Executive Officer of Asia Pacific Real Assets Association (APREA). Based in Singapore, she is responsible for overseeing the strategic direction, initiatives and operations of the association across Asia Pacific. Under her leadership, APREA repositioned to an industry trade group focusing on real estate and infrastructure.

Sigrid joined APREA’s executive team in January 2019.

Prior to APREA, she served as Managing Director of Asia Pacific Research and Advisory Services of Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) from 2010 through 2018, where she was responsible for research, thought leadership, strategy formulation and client management.  Before relocating to Singapore, she was based in Washington, D.C. and led C&W’s U.S. research group in the Mid-Atlantic region, overseeing all aspects of market research activities in the Washington, DC; Virginia; Suburban Maryland, Baltimore; and Philadelphia areas. Prior to joining C&W, Sigrid served as a Senior Economist for the National Association of Realtors (NAR). In that position, she developed NAR’s office, warehouse, retail, multi-family housing, and international research programs.

A recognized expert in global economic, public policy and real estate issues, Sigrid is a frequent speaker at industry events.  Her commentary on commercial and residential real estate markets is also regularly featured in a wide array of global publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, New York Times and Reuters. Additionally, she has made several television appearances on financial networks and radio such as CNBC, Bloomberg, CNN, National Public Radio and Channel News Asia.

Sigrid holds a Master of Business Administration from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and a Master’s degree in Economics from Pennsylvania State University. She is a member of several civic groups including the Rotary Club of Raffles City in Singapore, where she has served in various leadership positions, and serves in the Executive Committee of the Crohn’s & Colitis Society of Singapore.

Sigrid is the Chief Executive Officer of Asia Pacific Real Assets Association (APREA). Based in Singapore, she is responsible for overseeing the strategic direction, initiatives and operations of the association across Asia Pacific. Under her leadership, APREA repositioned to an industry trade group focusing on real estate and infrastructure.

Sigrid joined APREA’s executive team in January 2019.

Prior to APREA, she served as Managing Director of Asia Pacific Research and Advisory Services of Cushman & Wakefield (C&W) from 2010 through 2018, where she was responsible for research, thought leadership, strategy formulation and client management.  Before relocating to Singapore, she was based in Washington, D.C. and led C&W’s U.S. research group in the Mid-Atlantic region, overseeing all aspects of market research activities in the Washington, DC; Virginia; Suburban Maryland, Baltimore; and Philadelphia areas. Prior to joining C&W, Sigrid served as a Senior Economist for the National Association of Realtors (NAR). In that position, she developed NAR’s office, warehouse, retail, multi-family housing, and international research programs.

A recognized expert in global economic, public policy and real estate issues, Sigrid is a frequent speaker at industry events.  Her commentary on commercial and residential real estate markets is also regularly featured in a wide array of global publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, New York Times and Reuters. Additionally, she has made several television appearances on financial networks and radio such as CNBC, Bloomberg, CNN, National Public Radio and Channel News Asia.

Sigrid holds a Master of Business Administration from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management and a Master’s degree in Economics from Pennsylvania State University. She is a member of several civic groups including the Rotary Club of Raffles City in Singapore, where she has served in various leadership positions, and serves in the Executive Committee of the Crohn’s & Colitis Society of Singapore.

An active advocate for green building and sustainability for over two decades, Esther has been instrumental in establishing CDL’s leadership in sustainability. It is ranked top real estate company on the 2021 Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World. It became the first real estate conglomerate in Southeast Asia to sign the World Green Building Council’s Net Zero Carbon Buildings in February 2021. Key ESG initiatives she has spearheaded include publishing the first sustainability report in Singapore in 2008; issuing the first green bond by a Singaporean company in 2017 and building an integrated sustainability reporting framework since 2015.

A forerunner in embracing the UN SDGs, Esther was conferred 2018 SDG Pioneer for Green Infrastructure and A Low Carbon Economy by the UN Global Compact. She is a signatory for the UNGC Caring for Climate network and an executive council member of the UN ESCAP Sustainable Business Network. She sits on the boards or advisory platforms of several organisations, including World Green Building Council, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), GRESB Asian Real Estate Benchmark Committee and UNEP FI Real Estate Work Group. She’s a vice-chair of World Green Building Council Corporate Advisory Borad; chairperson of the Asia Pacific Real Estate Association’s Sustainability and ESG Committee; co-chair of the Urban Land Institute Singapore’s Sustainability Product Council and is the vice-chairperson of the Singapore Institute of Directors’ ESG Committee.

Recognising that youth engagement and female empowerment is crucial for sustainable development, she founded the Women4Green network in 2017 and the Youth4Climate initiative in 2018.

More recently at COP26, Esther was the only speaker from the Asian real estate sector at the Built Environment Leaders Panel. She also initiated a partnership with Singapore Youth for Climate Action and launched the Keep Calm and Love Our Planet campaign with a view to promote positive thinking and collaborative climate action amongst youths in the global race to net zero.

As the Deputy General Manager of China Overseas Commercial Properties CO., Ltd. (COCP), Angel Tang leads the assets management and leasing effort of COCP’s 6 million-square-meter Grade A office buildings across China and overseas, with her 14 years’ experience in the field of commercial real estate. 

As a flagship of the global commercial office asset management brand, COOC(China Overseas Office Capital)was established under Tang’s leadership, it has catapulted COCP’s Office assets business segment into a new phase of comprehensive brand development.

COOC has become one of the largest single ownership office building development brands in China, developing and operating Grade A office buildings across nearly 30 cities.

In order to capture the new trend of work style, smart working brand-OFFICEZIP was established to create a new office ecosystem with a variety of supporting formats for life and business, forming an ecological value circle with complementary customers and products with COOC, Officloud and Officare.

Anita Marangoly George has been an investor backing early trends with winning partners and established a distinguished track record in sustainable investments across the globe. She began her career as a Young Professional at the World Bank based in Washington DC and worked on infrastructure in Latin America, Eastern and Central Europe. She worked with Siemens AG to set up Siemens Financial Services in India and supported projects in Telecom and Power sectors. Anita spent 22 years at the World Bank Group with 14 of those years with the IFC in Infrastructure and Natural Resources, Municipal Finance and initiated the creation of IFC’s Venture group. She gained extensive and diverse global experience in institutional finance and investing in sustainable infrastructure in Renewable Energy, Logistics and Water from early stage to established companies across several geographies – Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. She has demonstrated success in anticipating trends and technological disruptions and has helped her organizations adopt new business models and platforms to adapt to new developments and to the needs of underserved populations.

Anita has had several roles in the last five and a half years with CDPQ. She established CDPQ’s office in India and soon after became Executive Vice President and Head of Emerging Markets at CDPQ. Her final post at CDPQ was as Executive Vice President and Deputy Head of CDPQ Global covering all geographies outside of Canada. Supporting investments in renewable energy, highways, telecom, and venture fund investments in Emerging Markets.

Anita has served on 10 boards of which 5 have been in the financial sector. As a board member, she has focused on helping the board anticipate and be proactive about key strategic issues that could disrupt the company, and risk and compliance from a statutory, regulatory and legal perspective. Anita has been critical in helping companies globalize and in anticipating and addressing technology and people as two essential pillars of success.

Anita George is passionate about and committed to human capital development and economic empowerment of women and girls. She is actively engaged in mentoring women and girls. Anita serves on non-profit boards and advisory boards/councils involved in Recovery and Resilience, Human Capital Development, Technology and Climate Finance, and Sustainable Infrastructure.

Akemi is a partner in the financial services group of PwC Japan Tax, where she leads Banking Capital Market and Asset Management Sector. She specializes in tax consulting for real estate companies and financial institutions and development of various financial products and investment funds including JREITs. Akemi acts as PwC Tax Japan Knowledge Center leader (Tax Policy Section) and is responsible for monitoring tax policy developments. Akemi is a member of the Japanese Institute of Certified Public Accountants (CPA) and Japanese Licensed Tax Accountant Association. She graduated in laws from Kyoto University.

Donna joined Citco 15 years ago as a Managing Director and in that time has been responsible for clients and operations in our Sydney, Dublin, New Jersey and Singapore offices. Donna is currently responsible for Fund Services in the Asia Pacific Region where she leads a team that engages with clients to deliver expert knowledge and innovative solutions to Citco’s client. Donna serves on our Global Hedge Fund Management team and overseas Citco’s strategic initiatives and implementation in the APAC region. The Fund industry in the APAC region continues to evolve with clients seeking our expertise for increasingly complex problems. She works with Citco’s business development team by presenting bespoke solutions and our proprietary technology to new and existing clients.

Prior to joining Citco Donna was Global Head of Product Management for Alternative Fund Services at HSBC, formerly the Bank of Bermuda, for 10 years where she held several roles across Bermuda, South Africa and New York all of which involved servicing Alternative Investment Funds. Donna has a Bachelor of Commerce (1993), Chartered Account in Canada (1996) and Chartered Financial Analyst (2001).