Henry Bott Now President of Swire Properties US

One of Hong Kong’s best known conglomerates leads this week’s set of personnel updates on Mingtiandi as Hong Kong’s John Swire and Sons announces new leadership for its US property business. Also making the list are senior level appointments at Knight Frank and Guotai Junan International.

Miami-based Swire Properties Inc announced this past week that it has appointed Henry Bott as its new president, with the company veteran having already relocated to the US to take on his new role. With Swire in the midst of developing a supertall project in Miami’s Brickell area, Bott is taking over the top US job with the unit of privately held conglomerate John Swire and Sons from Kieran Bowers, who is understood to be leaving the firm. Now with Swire for more than a dozen years, Bott had served most recently as the company’s chief representative for Vietnam.

Russell Lam has joined Knight Frank in Hong Kong as an executive director with the company’s investment brokerage division, according to a LinkedIn update. Lam has signed up with Knight Frank after more than eight years with Colliers, where he had also served most recently as an executive director. At Knight Frank, Lam will be reunited with his former Colliers colleague Antonio Wu, who leads the company’s capital markets team in the city after joining from Colliers in 2021.

Terence Zhang has taken on the role of vice president with the fund management division of Guotai Junan International in Hong Kong, according to a LinkedIn update. In his new role Zhang will be responsible for covering opportunities in commercial, industrial and residential both through private equity and debt financing across Hong Kong, Australia, Japan and the UK. Prior to joining the Hong Kong unit of the mainland investment bank, Zhang had spent just over one year with developer CIFI Group in Hong Kong.

Indian real estate developer TARC announced last week that it has hired Anil Gupta as president for projects as part of a wave of new hires for the luxury residential specialist. Before joining TARC Gupta had served for less than a year as chief operating office for projects with Elan Group in Gurugram and also served stints with Ruchi Realty, Hero Realty, Tata Housing Development and Arvind Ltd.

JLL announced earlier this month that it has appointed James Abe as managing director and head of investment sales for its hotels and hospitality division in Japan. Abe joins JLL from Canada’s Westmont Hospitality Partners, where he led the investment firm’s hotel business in Japan. The veteran executive also has experience with Shinsei Bank and joins JLL at the same time that it has hired Gus Moors as a managing director running investment sales for the firm’s hotels and hospitality division in New South Wales.

Joel Dodd has been promoted to head of workplace for Asia with Standard Chartered Bank, and has returned to Hong Kong from Malaysia for his new role, according to a LinkedIn update. Dodd took on the lead position managing the bank’s offices in the region this month after serving an interim stint as head of property for Malaysia with Standard and Chartered and has now been with the UK lender for more than three years.

Fun Tong has taken a step up to managing director for North Asia with CBRE’s GWS Enterprise division, based in Shanghai. In his upgraded role, Tong now oversees Japan and Korea, in addition to his existing duties managing Greater China CBRE’s efforts on behalf of clients in its Global Workplace Services division. The graduate of King’s College in London has now been with CBRE more than five years after joining from JLL in 2017.

If you know of other Asia real estate professionals changing their jobs, getting promoted or just doing something exciting, please contact us here at Mingtiandi.