Global real estate advisor, CBRE has strengthened its Northern UK Development team with a senior hire in Yorkshire.
Catherine Birks has been appointed as senior director, bringing 20 years strategic development and regeneration experience to the team. Catherine’s expertise is particularly focussed on the promotion of public sector assets and public and private partnerships.
Catherine joins from LCR, owned by the Department for Transport, with a track record in long term strategic regeneration projects including King’s Cross and Stratford. Catherine successfully set up LCR’s Eastern Region and latterly headed up the expansion of the national development team working in partnership with Network Rail, Local Authorities and third party landowners to unlock and deliver complex sites and contribute to the Government’s Levelling Up agenda.
Prior to LCR, Catherine worked on behalf of public sector partners to progress the latest proposals for York Central, including partnership collaboration, master planning, funding packages, planning strategy, land assembly, project governance and more.
Catherine is based in Yorkshire, but has worked regionally and nationally having previously held an advisory role at Deloitte, providing development expertise to public and private sector clients, including Transport for London, NHS, Ministry of Defence, as well as Local Authorities.
Alistair Chapman, senior director, UK Development Advisory team, said: “We are delighted to announce Catherine’s arrival at CBRE as she brings a wealth of development experience to our team.
“Her appointment is a real sign of our continued growth in the development advisory space across Yorkshire, the North East and the UK and will help the business grow our relationships with key developers, investors, public organisations and occupiers in the region by building on the experience of our existing wider Development Advisory team.
“We already have a strong pipeline of projects and look forward to growing this in collaboration with our existing market leading Leeds based teams.”
Richard Bamford, Managing Director, CBRE Leeds, said: “Catherine is a great addition to the CBRE Leeds team, her mix of public and private sector experience provides her with the excellent knowledge and skills needed to unlock many of the future development challenges in the region, bringing together a range of our in-house services such as Planning, Valuation, Agency, Project Management, Capital Advisors, Investment and ESG to name a few.
“With this appointment I am very much looking forward to seeing the continued growth of the Development Advisory business in Leeds, led by Alistair Chapman and Adam White with support from the wider team, to better service our local and national clients in the market.”
Catherine Birks added: “I am excited to be joining CBRE as the lead for the Development Advisory business in Yorkshire. I’ll be building on the success of the established team, providing expert tailored advice to clients, and promoting the capability of the wider CBRE business in the strategic regeneration and development sector.
“With my background being rooted in public and private partnerships, I’m looking forward to assisting clients across the region to unlock and deliver complex schemes to achieve their development, regeneration and economic growth ambitions.”
