Amr El Nady

Executive Vice President, Global Hotels Desk & Head of Middle East & Africa – JLL Hotels & Hospitality

As Head of Hotels & Hospitality, Amr has overall responsibility for the strategic direction and growth of JLL’s hotel business in the Middle East and Africa. Amr is also an integral part of the Global Hotel Desk Team and is currently involved in a wide range of hotel advisory and hotel investment sale instructions for single assets and portfolio transactions, with a focus on cross-border investment activities primarily from the Middle East. In addition, Amr also provides hotel investment services to private and institutional investors across the Middle East region.

Amr has 13 years’ experience within the hospitality industry. He has been involved in numerous assignments including Market and Financial Feasibility Studies, Operator Search and Selection, Strategic Development Advice and Investment Sale Instructions.

Amr also worked in JLL’s Hotels & Hospitality Team and Northern European Investment Sales Team based in London, UK, where he was heavily involved in sale mandates for a number of single, trophy and portfolio assets across the United Kingdom and Northern Europe.

Nihat Ercan

Managing Director, Head of Investment Sales Asia Pacific – JLL Hotels & Hospitality

Current Responsibilities

Currently holding the position of Head of Investment Sales Asia Pacific and based in JLL’s Singapore office, Nihat oversees a team of 16 investment professionals based out of Singapore, Bangkok, HK, Shanghai, Ho Chi Minh City with a focus on the investment and divestment needs of hotel investors and owners across the Asia Pacific region.

Experience

A JLL career professional, Nihat has been with the firm’s Hotels & Hospitality Group since 2002 when he began his early career as an Analyst in the company’s London headquarters. Based in Singapore since 2007 and with 18 years of experience selling hotels, Nihat has conducted USD 8 billion in hotel transactions to date across Europe, Asia, and the Indian Ocean. Since joining the Asia team, Nihat has been engaged in a broad range of transaction mandates for Asian and Middle Eastern clients across the region with an active involvement in cross-border regional investment opportunities and overseeing sales mandates in China, Hong Kong, the Indian Ocean, Japan, Singapore and Thailand.

Amongst others Nihat’s successes include:

- USD 1.5 billion of sales across Japan including the sale in 2019 of the iconic Westin Tokyo

- USD 1.39 billion of transactions across the Indian Ocean including Cheval Blanc Maldives for a global record of USD 4.7 million per key, the Banyan Tree Seychelles and Movenpick Mauritius;

- USD 1.5 billion of sales in Greater China including the InterContinental Hong Kong and Four Seasons Pudong

- USD 1.6 billion of sales in Singapore including the Andaz Singapore and Oakwood Downtown in 2019

Additionally Nihat also focuses on the flow of Asian capital into Europe and the US. In his role, Nihat has led the marketing of numerous trophy hotel investment opportunities to Asian capital, including sale of the Marriott Champs Elysees at a record Euro 1.7 million per key to a Hong Kong listed Chinese company.

A graduate of the University of Surrey, Nihat holds a first class BSc (Hons) in Hotel and Catering Management. He is a registered Real Estate Salesperson with Singapore’s Council for Estate Agencies.

Gilda Perez-Alvarado

Chief Executive Officer Americas – JLL Hotels & Hospitality

Current Responsibilities

Gilda Perez-Alvarado is the Chief Executive Officer of JLL Hotels & Hospitality, Americas, where she is responsible for investment sales, debt and equity placement, strategic advisory and asset management. Additionally, Gilda leads the group’s Global Hotel Desk, a specialized team of cross-border investment sales professionals based in the Middle East, Asia Pacific, the Americas and Europe. Previously, Gilda served as a Managing Director, focused on full-service investment sales throughout the United States and globally.

In the past 24 months, Gilda has utilized her global experience to coordinate the sale of several high-profile assets including the Plaza Hotel in New York, Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston, St. Regis San Francisco, InterContinental Porto, Waldorf Astoria Edinburg, Four Seasons Toronto, and the Silverbirch hotel portfolio in Canada, among others.

Gilda also serves as a member of JLL’s Global Capital Markets Advisory Group and on the Global Advisory Board of Qiddiya, a PIF-funded giga project in Saudi Arabia. In January 2016, she became the recipient of the Jack A. Shaffer Financial Advisor of the year award at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit.

Experience

Prior to re-joining the team in New York in 2010, Gilda was based in Madrid as Head of Hotel Debt Advisory Spain and Portugal, where she was responsible for working with financial institutions for hotel asset receiverships and workouts, as well as supporting the executive team in Spain and London in international capital markets. Prior to Madrid, Gilda was based in London and was responsible for luxury hotel transactions in the United Kingdom, Benelux and Scandinavia, where her primary project was the sale of the world famous Turnberry Resort in Scotland on behalf of Starwood Hotels and Resorts. Prior to her experience in London, Gilda was based in the New York and Miami offices of JLL, beginning in 2004. There, she advised in single asset and portfolio hotel transactions, financings, advisory assignments and asset management projects in the U.S., Caribbean and North Atlantic.

Positions

Prior to joining JLL, Gilda worked for the Hospitality and Leisure advisory practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Miami for more than two years, where her area of expertise was valuations and market and feasibility studies in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Education

Gilda received her Masters in Business Administration degree from Instituto de Empresa (IE Business School) in Madrid, Spain in 2010. In 2002, Gilda received her Bachelor of Science degree from the Cornell School of Hotel Administration in Ithaca, New York, where she graduated with Honors and served as Degree Marshall for her graduating class. Her specialization was in hotel real estate finance. Gilda has also attended Executive Education Courses on Competitive Strategy and Leadership at INSEAD and Stanford School of Business, respectively.

Patrick Saade

Senior Managing Director EMEA Capital Markets – JLL Hotels & Hospitality

Current responsibilities

Patrick J. Saade is the Senior Managing Director of EMEA Hotels & Hospitality Capital Markets in London, focusing on disposal assignments throughout Europe. He is responsible for the management of successful hotel and portfolio sales campaigns and leads a team of 14 Transaction experts in 5 countries.

Key skills and experience

Patrick joined the Investment Sales team of JLL’s Hotels and Hospitality Group in 2010 and has worked on a number of high profile single asset and portfolio transactions in key European cities, totaling in excess of $6 billion including the Marriott Champs Elysees, Hilton Berlin, InterContinental Porto, Simply Portfolio France, Sofitel Budapest, Fletcher Portfolio Netherlands, Hilton Prague, Silken Diagonal Barcelona, InterContinental Le Grand in Paris, the Ritz in Madrid, the Bristol Hotel and Jan III Sobieski in Warsaw.

Education and affiliations

Patrick holds an MBA degree from the ESSEC Business School in Paris, and a Diploma in Management from the European Management Centre in Paris. Patrick is proficient in written and spoken English, French and Arabic.

Mark Wynne-Smith

Global Head – JLL Hotels & Hospitality

Current responsibilities

Mark sits on JLL’s Global Capital Markets Board which oversees a business that transacts more than $1.2 billion of real estate every working day across the globe. He leads JLL’s Hotels & Hospitality Group which transacts in excess of $10 billion of hospitality real estate annually and finances more than $5 billion. Mark also oversees Valuation Advisory for the firm.

Key skills and experience

As Global Sector Lead of the Hotels and Hospitality Group of JLL, Mark leads a team of more than 300 hotel experts in 20 countries, his expertise – and that of JLL’s Hotels and Hospitality Group – spans the hospitality spectrum.

In recent years, Mark has been central to numerous corporate and hotel portfolio transactions, including advising the InterContinental Hotels Group on some $4 billion worth of their successful divestment of hotel real estate. He is also driven by a focus on midcap M&A and portfolio sales and recaps across the globe.

From luxury single assets and large portfolios to select service and budget hotels and resorts, Mark’s team delivers a broad range of services to leading industry players: corporate strategy, restructuring and transaction advice, equity and debt financing advice, project development and contract management, operating contract negotiation and asset management, to name just a few.

The increase in hybridization among asset classes that include hospitality has led Mark to take a deep interest in the emerging Operating Real Estate sector.

Education and affiliations

Mark is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.