Today, Connect Canada CRE is launching its inaugural People & Company News feature.

Canadian CRE professionals are on the move to new organizations and opportunities. Our weekly feature will keep you posted on the comings and goings, and other company news that may not be included in our usual stories.

The People & Company News feature will appear on Connectcre.ca and in Friday’s newsletter.

If you have a company appointment or other news item to share with us, please send an email to Monte Stewart at [email protected].

• Nadir Mohamed has joined the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board as a director. CPPIB ranks as one of Canada’s largest institutional investors. Mohamed has about three decades of experience in telecommunications and finance. He is the retired president and CEO of Rogers Communications and chairs Alignvest Management and sits of the boards of Cineplex and Toronto Metropolitan University. His appointment to the CPPIB resulted from Dean Connor’s promotion to chairperson as outgoing chairperson Heather Munroe-Blum‘s term expired.

• Maria Ricciardi has been appointed vice-president of housing business development for Desjardins in Montreal. “This opportunity allows me to join a dynamic and committed team in addition to reconnecting with my passion for real estate,” she wrote in French on LinkedIn. “After several years of developing a variety of knowledge in various sectors, I am very happy and fulfilled by this exciting new mandate, which for me is a return to my roots.” Ricciardi has served in insurance, products and enterprise operations vice-president roles with Desjardins in recent years. She performed a number of commercial real estate and construction-related roles with RBC and Desjardins during a previous stint with the company.

• Avison Young’s Edmonton office has bolstered its retail real estate advisory team with the additions of Paul Raimundo and Bruce Peters. Raimundo becomes a principal of the company. Peters will serve as a vice-president of the Edmonton office. Raimundo, a 23-year industry veteran, will partner with colleagues across the firm on retail leasing and sales transactions. Peters has approximately 15 years of commercial real estate industry experience. Both Raimundo and Peters previously served with JLL.

• Abigail Choi has joined Vancouver-based Clark Wilson as an associate with the firm’s commercial real estate law and strata property groups. Her legal practice covers acquisitions, sales and financings; residential, retail, office and mixed-use developments and contract drafting and reviews. She will assist commercial real estate investors, developers, government entities and private organizations with their legal needs. She will also help strata communities with matters involving management, disputes, and litigation. Choi served as a summer and articling law student with Clark Wilson before being called to the B.C. bar.

• JLL Canada and Concordia University are partnering on the JLL Real Estate Futures Lab in Montreal. The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, more commonly known as NSERC, is providing a $630,000 grant over three years for the project. Bruno Lee, a Concordia associate professor of building, civil and environmental engineering, will work closely with the lab to develop a multi-disciplinary decarbonization framework. The grant and lab are designed to help Canada meet its goal of carbon-emission neutrality by 2050.

• Jesse Unke has been appointed president and CEO of North Vancouver, B.C.-based infrastructure construction firm Maven Consulting. Maven delivers infrastructure projects for communities in Western and Northern Canada, serving utilities, municipalities, government organizations and private industry. Unke sits on the board of the B.C. Construction Roundtable.

• Jacob Hayon and Bruno Brami have jointed JLL Canada as an executive vice-president and vice-president, respectively, in Montreal. “With this move, we now have expanded capabilities and increased collaboration on a national level, allowing us to better serve our clients across the province of Quebec,” wrote Hayon on LinkedIn. Hayon and Brami become members of the company’s capital markets team and will focus on selling income-generating and commercial properties in Montreal, said JLL in a LinkedIn post.