Rik Eertink named President & CIO at CBRE Investment

CBRE Investment Management has reshaped the leadership of its EMEA Direct Real Estate arm, elevating Rik Eertink to the newly combined role of President and Chief Investment Officer. The move formalises a consolidated stewardship of asset strategy and portfolio execution as the manager seeks to scale its investor-operator model across Europe.

The promotion places Eertink at the centre of an expanded leadership team charged with navigating a complex market backdrop: rising interest-rate volatility, selective capital flows into core logistics and alternatives, and a cautious recovery in office occupier demand. The firm stressed the change is designed to tighten alignment between investment decisions and operating performance.

Supporting Rik Eertink will be four senior executives with broader remits: Hannah Marshall, Bas Tiemstra, Jan-Willem Bastijn and Niels Kokkeel. The quartet will take on enlarged responsibilities spanning sourcing, asset management, development and client delivery across EMEA, reflecting a shift to fewer, deeper leadership roles rather than a wider hierarchical spread.

In a separate personnel change, long‑time EMEA executive Paul Gibson will leave the firm to pursue an external senior role within the European real estate industry. The firm acknowledged his contribution to platform building while signalling the refreshed structure is intended to support the next phase of growth.

The announcement underlines the scale of the platform: CBRE Investment Management reported $155.8 billion in assets under management as of September 30, 2025. That scale gives it reach across core, core-plus and value-add strategies in markets where local operating capability—property management, leasing, project delivery—can materially affect returns.

Market context matters. Institutional allocators are increasingly favouring managers that combine balance‑sheet discipline with operational control; managers that can squeeze value through active asset management tend to outperform passive exposures in the current cycle. Europe faces uneven recovery patterns—logistics and residential remain in demand, while Central London and gateway office markets show more differentiated occupier trends—making hands-on operational leadership a competitive advantage.

For investors, the leadership consolidation signals a clearer line of responsibility for investment outcomes. By pairing the President and CIO roles, CBRE IM is betting that tighter executive oversight will accelerate decision-making and translate data and on-the-ground operating capabilities into portfolio resilience. The reorganisation also reflects broader industry trends: a wave of asset managers are flattening structures to speed up execution and strengthen client transparency.