Juergen Fenk, member of the Group Executive Board of SIGNA Group, has been named the new chair of ULI Europe. Fenk, who succeeds Jon Zehner, global head of the client capital group for LaSalle Investment Management, will serve on a voluntary basis for a two-year term.
Fenk brings extensive ULI leadership experience to his new role. A member of ULI for over a decade, Fenk has just completed a four-year term as chair of ULI Germany, ULI’s second largest national council in Europe. He is also a Global Governing Trustee, a member of ULI Europe’s Executive Committee, and serves on ULI’s Global Board of Directors.
“On behalf of all of the ULI members in Europe, I would like to thank Jon Zehner for his visionary leadership over the past two years,” said Fenk. “During Jon’s term as chair, ULI Europe has grown rapidly to nearly 3,500 members, and expanded the opportunities for members to engage by increasing the number of National Council events, creating new Product Councils, and advancing programmes such as UrbanPlan. Undoubtedly one of Jon’s greatest achievements as chair is the creation of our new Strategic Plan that will act as ULI Europe’s roadmap for the next four years.”
Fenk will lead the implementation of the ULI Europe Strategic Plan, which is part of ULI’s Global Strategic Plan, recently approved by the Institute’s Global Board of Directors. The four-year plan strives to strengthen member engagement and expand its impact around the world. The Europe Strategic Plan will focus on five key areas: growing individual and corporate membership in the region; strengthening ULI’s position in Europe as a multi-disciplinary real estate and land use knowledge network, which leads in applying big ideas and emerging trends to business practices; further developing National Councils and Product Councils to increase member engagement; focusing on mission-driven activities, such as UrbanPlan and Advisory Services to distinguish ULI from other organizations; and establishing a financially resilient platform for sustainable growth.
“ULI in Europe is in an exciting phase of its development,” said Fenk. “The approval of the new Strategic Plan will provide us with the focus and investment needed to grow our membership, develop our networks, and expand our reach across Europe. Our approach will be to continue building each National Council by developing its local programme and growing its membership, while at the same time increasing the knowledge sharing and collaboration between councils to ensure we build a truly European network.”
“ULI’s global and genuinely multi-disciplinary membership is something that makes us unique among real estate organisations. ULI’s origins in Europe have always made it more historically focused on capital markets and finance, and while we want to maintain our strong presence in this area, we also want to continue our growth in other sectors and disciplines to ensure we are truly reflective of the whole real estate market,” continued Fenk. “Advisory Services is one programme that can really help us broaden our engagement with the public sector. During my term as chair for ULI Germany, we undertook an Advisory Services panel in Frankfurt / Offenbach. The panel not only tackled an important real estate challenge for the city, but really helped drive engagement between members and facilitated a much richer dialogue between ULI and local government. I would like to see us replicate this achievement in other cities across Europe.”
Fenk also wants to see growth in corporate membership at ULI, “I know from my own experience of chairing ULI Germany how powerful forging meaningful partnerships with leading real estate developers and investors can be. Continuing to grow ULI’s corporate membership base is the key to unlocking new opportunities for content development, programs and events.”
“We are excited at the prospect of what ULI can achieve in Europe with our new Strategic Plan and we are very fortunate to have Jürgen Fenk as the new Chair of ULI Europe to lead the plan’s execution,” said ULI Global Chairman Thomas W. Toomey, who is Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and president of UDR, Inc. in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. “As Chair of ULI Germany, Juergen has already proven his ability to increase member engagement and generate significant impact in our communities, and we know that he is ideally placed to lead ULI Europe in its next phase of growth.”
Fenk joined SIGNA Group in October 2017 and is primarily focused on banking, capital markets, capital sourcing and the new innovation unit of the group. He was previously a member of the management board of Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba), where he was responsible for real estate, debt capital markets and financial institutions. Fenk has extensive experience in the areas of property, banking and capital markets.
