ARC - Key Persons
Andy Martin is based in London and has worked in the European property sector for over 35 years. He started his career at Richard Ellis (now CBRE) and later became a Senior Partner at Strutt & Parker, where he was also the head of the commercial real estate division. After Strutt & Parker merged with BNP Paribas Real Estate in 2017, Andy became the UK CEO of BNP Paribas Real Estate and was a member of its European board. He retired from BNP Real Estate at the end of 2020.
Andy holds several advisory and board positions. He is a Trustee of the Urban Land Institute and the former Chairman of the ULI's UK Council. He is also a retained advisor to Stifel Nicolaus Europe, a US investment bank, and he is a member of the advisory board of Hodes Weill & Associates, a leading US placement agent. Andy has also served as a Director of the Investment Property Forum from 2001-2009 during which time he was Chairman from 2004-2005.
Arkadiusz is based in Warsaw and serves as an Associate Director, supporting equity and debt mandates and transactions. Arkadiusz previously worked at Colliers in the Corporate Finance department where he was an Investment Analyst focused on residential and PRS mandates. Beforehand, Arkadiusz worked at the EWL Group as an analyst focused on financial modelling and the Dor Group as a commercial leasing specialist. He started his career in residential leasing at Mzuri.
Arkadiusz completed his post graduate studies in Real Estate Management at the Warsaw University of Technology. He previously studied at the Lazarski University where he completed his bachelor's degree in Economics and his thesis was on the analysis of housing prices in Poland. Arek is working towards completing the CCIM program. He is fluent in English and Polish. BREEAM Associate.
Bartosz Miszkurka is a qualified advocate, graduating from the Law Faculty at Warsaw University and then obtained an LLM at the London School of Economics. Mr Miszkurka gained experience in real estate law at leading international law firms and from 2008 to 2012 was managing partner of the real estate practice of a Big Four-affiliated law firm. Currently, Mr Miszurka is managing BTA Solivan in Warsaw and Wrocław, acting also in the CEE region within the PONTES legal network. Mr Miszurka has extensive experience in providing legal advice to real estate investment funds, developers, asset managers, property fund managers and other stakeholders on large and complex real estate projects such as shopping centers, retail parks, logistic, offices and residential developments.
Czcibor is based in Warsaw and serves as CFO to ARC Capital Markets. He has extensive international experience in financial management and executive roles.
In the first decade of his career, Czcibor worked at JP Morgan and Dresdner Bank in London and then at Citibank in Warsaw. After, Czcibor went on to hold COO role in Poland at TMS Securities and then CEO of Noble Securities, where he was responsible for the debt capital markets team. Czcibor has served on the board of Altus TFI and non-executive board of Polnord. Czcibor went on to establish Monte Grappa Partners, a Luxembourg-based AIFM fund, that he managed for 2-years and subsequently joined Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego as a Director, before becoming CEO of BGK's SEC-registered AIFM subsidiary.
In 2008, Czcibor completed his MBA from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. He is fluent in English and Polish. BREEAM Associate.
Job Titles:
- Founding Partner
- Non - Executive Director
David has over 2 decades of experience in finance and real estate. Prior to founding the Charles Irvine Group in London, David served as the Head of Corporate Finance at Savills Investment Management, where he joined as a founding partner in 2004. David also held positions Chief Financial Officer, Fund Operations and as Managing Director of Savills IM in Italy. During his career he has been involved in projects to raise equity, debt financing or refinancing of £3.5bn. Prior to his posts at Savills Investment Management, David was a director at Close Brothers, the UK merchant bank, and before worked at Arthur Andersen (now Deloitte in the UK).
David holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Manchester and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1999.
Job Titles:
- Managing Director
- Managing Director / Germany
Dr. Zoe Tsesmelidakis is Managing Director of ARC Capital Markets in Germany and is based in Frankfurt. Zoe has 15+ years of experience in credit and risk management.
Zoe previously worked at CBRE and Colliers Germany, where she was responsible for deal origination and client advisory (buy-/ sell-side) with a special focus on debt structuring and financing across asset classes and strategies (core+, value-add, opportunistic). Zoe has also been a Senior Economist at the Financial Stability Directorate of the Bank of England where she was working on the development of stress-testing models and various topics around credit risk.
In addition to her professional experience, Zoe had an impressive academic career as researcher and professor with various appointments at Goethe University, MIT Sloan, the University of Oxford, and WWU.
Zoe is fluent in German, English, and Greek.
Elio Szmawonian is based in Warsaw and is a Senior Director with responsibilities for transaction management.
Elio has over 30 years of real estate and executive experience across central and eastern Europe. Most recently, he was the Head of Asset Management and a Board Advisor at Napollo Real Estate. Between 2007 and 2015, Elio was a Board Member at Mayland Real Estate with responsibilities for project development and investor relations. Between 2003-2007, Elio was the Head of Project Development at Mace in Poland with a focus on large format retail centers, office buildings and residential projects.
Elio started his career as Development Director CEE at Strabag (Bau Holdings) where he oversaw the development of 630,000 sqm of projects in Poland, Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia. In 1997, Elio became a Board Member of Hotele Warszawskie Syrena Ltd. and responsible for six hotel assets in Warsaw.
Elio completed his MSc (Civil Engineering) at the Technical University of Vienna and he holds a Polish property management license. Elio is fluent in English, French, German and Polish. BREEAM Associate.
Helmut Fischer is based in Warsaw and is a Senior Director with responsibilities for managing financing transactions. He is a real estate finance expert with more than 35 years of lending experience in Europe, the US and Asia. For the past 20 years Helmut has been based in Poland.
Prior to joining ARC Capital Markets, Helmut was the Managing Partner at Anava Capital and with responsibility for a new real estate debt fund similar to his previous role at a Polish private equity firm where he was in charge of the first 2 real estate mezzanine funds which grew to EUR 450 million in volume. Beforehand, Helmut worked for more than 25 years at HypoVereinsbank Group with assignments in Munich, New York, Vienna, Hong Kong and Warsaw. In Poland, Helmut served on the management board of Hypobank Bank Hipoteczny (mortgage bank) and served as the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of two, 100% controlled, real estate development companies of the bank. During his time at Bank BPH in Poland (HVB Group) Helmut was responsible for transaction volumes of EUR 3 billion and was in parallel responsible for the cost optimization program of the bank's >500 assets.
Mr. Fischer holds a professional banking diploma (Bankkaufman) and is fluent in German and English. BREEAM Associate.
John Banka is based in Warsaw and as a Senior Director he shares responsibilities for managing client relationships and the delivery of services for investment and development transactions.
He is a commercial real estate professional with over 25 years of experience in the Polish and central European markets-initially with Golub, responsible for the Warsaw Financial Center office development project, later joining Ernst & Young's real estate consulting team and then Colliers International where he established the firm's investment practice in Poland and became an equity partner. Prior to joining ARC, John established and managed an independent real estate advisory practice providing project development, financing, investment advisory and leasing strategies for clients on projects throughout central and eastern Europe.
Earlier in his career, John worked as an economic development official-first, with the City of Chicago and subsequently, the New York City Public Development Corporation, with responsibility for coordinating significant commercial and industrial investments in both cities, including the Chicago Board Options Exchange, Amgen's initial research facility and the Audubon Research & Technology Park at Columbia University.
John earned a B.A. with honors in Urban Studies at Furman University, a master's degree in Urban Planning & Policy at the University of Illinois-Chicago and an MBA from Northwestern University. He has also completed a Harvard University Graduate School of Design course in urban retail strategy.
He is the founder and initial chairman of Urban Land Institute in Poland, and speaks English, Polish, German and Spanish. BREEAM Associate.
Kacper Pajak is based in Warsaw, Poland and serves as an advisor to ARC Capital Markets with a focus on corporate finance activities. He has extensive international experience in the investment banking sector. Over the last decade he worked for UniCredit Corporate & Investment Banking and Erste Group within M&A teams in Vienna, London and Warsaw where was involved in a significant number of cross-border projects across the DACH/CEE regions and beyond. Kacper also served as a Vice President in a Leveraged & Acquisition Finance team covering CEE markets.
Kacper completed his Masters in International Business Administration from the University of Vienna. He also obtained a scholarship at the Cass Business School, London and recently completed an Executive Program in Operational Resilience at the London Business School. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder, and is fluent in Polish, English, German and Spanish.
Kasia Laszkowska is based in Warsaw and is a Senior Director with responsibilities for managing financing transactions.
Prior to joining ARC Capital Markets, Kasia was the Private Debt Director at warehouse developer 7R with responsibility for capital raising as well as capital markets advisory. In her 20+ year career, Kasia has worked for banking institutions such as Santander and DnB, and on the client side at 7R and Panattoni, where she closed more than 30 commercial real estate financing deals with the total volume approaching EUR 1 billion. Kasia has arranged loans on office, retail and logistics properties throughout Poland.
She was also part of capital markets team within Knight Frank for 6 years in Poland where she was leading the transaction management team. Kasia is fluent in Polish and English.
Job Titles:
- Founder
- Non - Executive Director
Lane Auten is the Founder of ARC Properties, a group of companies based in Barcelona, Spain. Initially established as an opportunistic real estate investment platform, ARC Properties formed ARC Homes, a scaling mid-market residential development business active in both Spain and Portugal.
Lane was previously Managing Director at Waypoint Real Estate Group, a pioneering US private equity real estate group focused on converting REO housing into rental properties. Waypoint was sold to Starwood Capital and listed as the Starwood Waypoint Residential Trust, eventually merging with Colony American Homes to create a $7.7 billion single-family REIT with 30,000 homes.
Lane started his career at Banco Santander in Madrid as an investment banker in the corporate strategy group during their global acquisition phase, focusing on LATAM and Northern Europe. He then moved back to the US where he worked for UBS in San Francisco and subsequently HRJ Capital as Managing Director, leading the structuring and placement of $2 billion of private equity in global venture capital, buy-out, distressed-turnaround and real estate.
Lane completed his Masters in Foreign Service & International Business Diplomacy from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, FINRA Securities Registrations 7 and 63, and is fluent in English, Spanish and German.
Job Titles:
- Non - Executive Director
- Principal in SIMRES Real Estate Sarl
Markus Leininger is a principal in SIMRES Real Estate Sarl, Luxembourg and works as an independent director and advisor for various real estate investors and developers since 2012. Markus currently sits on the supervisory boards of Aroundtown (one of Germany's largest listed property companies with EUR 32 billion in assets) and Pradera Management (responsible for 53 retail properties situated across Europe totaling more than 1.3m sqm GLA) as well as being a senior advisor to Revetas Capital, an investment manager focused on the CEE market.
From 1995 until 2012, Mr Leininger worked at Eurohypo AG, a specialist commercial property lender, for much of that time as Head of Central and Eastern Europe, which covered real estate loan origination and business development. In 2000 he was responsible for establishing RHEINHYP's (a Eurohypo predecessor) presence in the United States of America. From 2002, Mr Leininger was responsible for the overall activities of a team of professionals in Eschborn, Vienna, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Bucharest, Moscow and Tel Aviv. In 2007, the Northern European markets (Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands and Finland) were added to his responsibilities. He was responsible for a loan book of more than 8 billion and in his career has led transactions in excess of 15 billion.
Mr Leininger holds a professional banking diploma (Bankkaufmann) and is a graduate (business administration) of Justus-Liebig-Universität, Giessen. He resides in Luxembourg, is a citizen of Austria and is fluent in German, English and French.
Martin Kyhos is Managing Director of ARC Capital Markets in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Martin has worked for several international companies in his 22 year career and has gained experience in capital markets, financing, principal investments, property development, leasing, asset and property management.
From 2004-2010 Martin worked as Managing Director of a Czech branch of Doughty Hanson & Co. Real Estate and was responsible for their Prague investments. From 2010-2015, he served as Managing Director of the Rustler Group, an Austrian owned property and facility management companies. Over the last 6 years, Martin was member of Ukrainian Focus Estate Fund where he was supporting acquisitions in the Czech Republic and Poland. In parallel, Martin established KYHOS Real Estate, an investment agency where he was advising domestic and international clients on CEE property investments.
Martin is fluent in English and Czech. BREEAM Associate.
Monika Bleszynska is based in Warsaw and is the Director, Operations with responsibilities for managing all administration matters and office functions. Monika gained her professional expertise, working for several international companies over the last 15 years as an office coordinator, office manager and executive assistant specializing in working with boards and executives.
Prior to joining ARC Capital Markets, Monika was the Administration Coordinator at Costa where she managed the back office in Poland with close cooperation to regional managers and EMENA manager based in London. Beforehand, Monika worked at Colliers supporting the Investment Services team and then EPP where she was responsible for setting up the back office functions and administration procedures.
Monika holds a Masters degree from the University of Warsaw and is a certified MS Office specialist. She speaks Polish, English and Mongolian.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Managing Partner
- Senior Advisor or Board Member
Neil Gregory-Eaves is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of ARC Capital Markets. A recognized European real estate investment professional, Neil worked at Colliers from 1992-2016, serving for the last decade as International Director on the Global Investment Services team. Over the course of his career, Neil has led or advised on office, retail and industrial transactions with a value of EUR 5 billion, including some of the largest single asset and M&A transactions in Eastern Europe.
From 2016, Neil has served as Senior Advisor or Board Member to several organizations including EPP, a EUR 3 billion retail landlord in Poland. He became a Partner in ARC Properties in 2018 and has supported the growth of the firm.
Neil earned his BA from the University of Western Ontario majoring in Urban Geography and completed the International Governance Program at INSEAD. Neil is fluent in English and French. BREEAM Associate.
Mr. Schmidt holds a Master's degree from the A. Mickiewicz University in Poznań, and completed various programs at Georgetown University (GLS), University of California, Hastings (Fulbright Fellow), Leiden University, TMC Asser Institute and INSEAD.
Mr Schmidt has served and/or chaired the boards of directors of various public and private companies. He is a certified systemic-psychodynamic executive coach (INSEAD - ICC4 and ACG1).
Mr Schmidt is fluent in English and Polish and proficient in German, Spanish and Russian.
Przemyslaw Aleksander Schmidt is a Non-Executive Director of ARC Capital Markets. Mr Schmidt is the former Chairman and a Founder of TRIGON, the largest independent investment bank in Poland. During his investment banking career, Mr Schmidt was advising or supervising more than 80 corporate transactions, the total value of which exceeded EUR 12 billion.
Job Titles:
- Managing Partner
- Managing Director of Property Finance
- Managing Partner, Property Finance
Robert Sztemberg is the Managing Director of Property Finance at ARC Capital Markets. In his 25-year career, Robert has worked for two German banks and JLL, with a focus on Poland and Russia.
From 1999-2012, Robert was a real estate banker at Hamburgische Landesbank / HSH Nordbank based in Hamburg, Warsaw and then Moscow. Between 2012 and 2014, Robert worked for ECE in Warsaw in the retail development sector on major projects in Poznan and Gdansk. From 2015 to 2018, Robert served as the Head of the Representative Office in Warsaw for BerlinHyp, a major German mortgage lender. During his career as a banker, Robert has arranged loans of more than EUR 5 billion on office, retail and logistics properties. He joins ARC Capital Markets after three years at JLL in Warsaw.
Robert earned his Masters in Business Administration from the University of Applied Sciences / HTWG in Konstanz, Germany. He is fluent in English, German and Polish.
Job Titles:
- Managing Director
- Managing Director / Austria
- Partner at Neuhold & Partner ImmobilienWERTschätzungs GmbH
Stefan Csejtei is Managing Director of ARC Capital Markets in Austria and is based in Vienna. Stefan has almost 20 years of real estate experience in sales, acquisitions, asset management, project development and valuation. He previously worked at ÖBB Immobilien Management GmbH, CBRE, Colliers and the Immofinanz Group, where he was responsible for the asset management of industrial and office properties in France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, and Romania.
Stefan graduated from the Karl-Franzens University in Graz with a Master in Law degree and has earned an MBA in international real estate management from the Biberach University of Applied Sciences and London South Bank University.
In addition to his work with ARC Capital Markets, Stefan is an equity partner at Neuhold & Partner ImmobilienWERTschätzungs GmbH, a leading independent real estate valuation business in Austria, and he became a court certified real estate appraiser in 2015. Stefan has also completed ESG certification with the Austrian Sustainable Building Council (ÖGNI).
Stefan is fluent in English and German.
Job Titles:
- Managing Director
- Managing Director / Germany
Steffen Rapp is Managing Director of ARC Capital Markets in Germany and is based in Frankfurt. Steffen has over 25 years of capital markets experience in sales & origination of several asset classes including real estate, FX, rates and commodities.
Steffen previously worked at DLE Group where he was responsible as Managing Director for Institutional Clients & Family Office Investors in Land, Logistics, Senior Living & Senior/Mezzanine Debt. At Aggregate Financial Services and then Corestate, he was active on real estate lending with investors and real estate developers. Steffen previously worked at Deutsche Bank for over 20 years where he had several leading and specialist roles in risk management and corporate sales in Munich, Frankfurt, and London.
Steffen holds a professional banking diploma (Bankkaufman) and has completed several executive programs at the European Business School in banking and economics (Betriebswirt), real estate investment and finance, and sustainable investments.
Steffen is fluent in German and English.
Job Titles:
- Non - Executive Director
- Partner
Tim joined Charles Irvine in 2022. He has been in finance for over 25 years, and more recently raising capital for alternative assets for over a decade. He started his career in investment banking in equity research before moving into equity sales and then prime brokerage capital origination. In his finance career, Tim has worked for UBS, ABN Amro, Citi and Morgan Stanley. At Morgan Stanley, Tim headed the firm's Middle East hedge fund capital introductions effort before joining a start-up hedge fund with the backing of a Swiss family office. In 2019, Tim moved to Aerium as Head of Business Development.
Tim holds a BA Hons. in Business Studies from UWE Bristol.