Kieren Carman

Investment Manager

Kieren joined AFM in July 2024 and is involved in the sourcing, underwriting and execution of Assembly’s Real Estate Private Equity and Credit Investments across Australia and New Zealand. He has c. 7 years of Real Estate experience across Private Equity, Investment Banking and Development in the US, Australia, and New Zealand.

Prior to AFM, Kieren was a member of the Real Estate Investment Banking team at Macquarie Capital in Sydney. Before this, he was a member of the Real Estate, Gaming and Lodging Investment Banking team at Goldman Sachs in New York. Kieren began his career at Lendlease and was a member of the Investment and Capital Markets team in both New York and Sydney. During this time, Kieren has worked on some of the largest and most complex real estate transactions across asset classes, geographies, and public and private markets.

Kieren holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) / Bachelor of Laws from the University of New South Wales, a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice from the College of Law and he is admitted as a Lawyer in the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

Emma Carney

Finance Manager

Emma has 20 years experience in the accounting and finance industry including 14 years in corporate audit in Australia and the UK.

In her most recent role she was Senior Manager in Corporate Audit at BDO, working with medium to large sized clients, both listed and unlisted across various industries.

Emma joined AFM in June 2022 as Finance Manager and is responsible for overseeing accounting and financial reporting.

Emma holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Financial Accounting) from the University of Newcastle and is a member of Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand.

Jeff Carson

Asset Manager

Jeff has over 15 years of client side asset and investment management experience in Australia and the UK, most recently as Associate Director for LRE Capital based in London.

During his time in London, Jeff was focused on deal underwriting and developing asset management strategies for two discretionary value add / opportunistic funds. He has experience working across all property sectors.

Jeff began his career in valuations and later worked within Valad’s investment and asset management team in Sydney.

Elizabeth Coutts

Capital & Investor Relations

Elizabeth joined AFM in January 2022 and works across all aspects of raising new equity into the AFM platform, with a particular focus on private capital.

Elizabeth also leads the investor relations function, and is responsible for maintaining relationships with existing investors and their advisors. She is focused on servicing investors to a high standard.

Elizabeth has over 10 years’ experience in the property industry, most recently as a member of Lendlease’s Group Investment and Capital Markets team. In this role, Elizabeth focused on strategic investor relationships and capital raising across Lendlease’s global investment platform. Prior to this, she held roles within Lendlease’s corporate strategy group and the national real estate advisory team at KPMG Deal Advisory.

Elizabeth holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) and a Bachelor of Business Management (Real Estate and Development) from the University of Queensland.

Michael Gutman

Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Director & Investment Committee Member

Michael founded AFM in 2019 to leverage his extensive real estate experience into a diversified portfolio of attractive risk-adjusted investments through-the-cycle.

Prior to founding AFM, Michael gained his real estate experience across the key asset classes over the past four decades at key Australian listed groups including Mirvac, Lendlease and Westfield Corporation.

Originally qualifying as an architect in 1980, Michael made a significant contribution to the strategic growth of Westfield throughout a 25-year tenure (culminating in the sale of the Company in 2018). He held various roles domestically and internationally at Westfield, including Global President and Chief Operating Officer, and also served as main board Director from 2014-2018. The team at Westfield under his responsibility numbered 1000 people in the US and UK in the fields of Development, Design, Construction, Leasing, Management and Marketing.

Michael received the Officer of the British Empire in 2015 for services to retail and regeneration in the UK following his leadership of the successful redevelopments at Westfield London and Westfield Stratford city.

In addition to his experience with the creation and operation of very large (circa $1bn) retail real estate projects in Australia, the UK and the US (including Westfield Doncaster, Westfield Fountain Gate, Westfield London, Westfield Stratford City and Westfield Century City), Michael also led the identification of many value add opportunities and new strategic directions for the Westfield portfolio which were highly profitable and value accretive. These included several thousand apartment sites for sale or rental, commercial office buildings which were built speculatively or pre let to major government departments, and surplus land disposed of to other high value users. Michael worked closely with Westfield’s founding shareholders and leadership team, growing the company over almost half its listed history.

As with ADPF1, Michael is a significant investor in ADPF2 to ensure maximum alignment with investors.

Michael leverages his background and business network to secure and deliver opportunities for the funds.

Steve Jones

Chief Financial Officer

Steve has over 20 years of global finance experience including 15 years at Westfield / Scentre Group working across the corporate and operating businesses in the UK, US and Australia.

In his most recent role he led the finance team supporting commercial operations at Scentre Group providing leadership across the organisation, overseeing delivery of financial reporting and forecasting, and financial lead on new business development and due diligence.

Steve previously held senior roles in Westfield’s corporate finance team with a broad range of responsibilities including key roles on both property level and corporate M&A deals, strategic corporate financial planning, operational performance reporting, and treasury.

Prior to Westfield, Steve held roles in the UK with Close Brothers Investments, Thomson Reuters, and Einfeld Symonds Vince in Australia.

Steve holds a Bachelor of Business (Accounting) from University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) and is a member of Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand.

Jemma Lee See

Capital & Investor Relations Analyst

Jemma joined AFM in July 2024 and works across capital raising and investor relations.

Prior to joining Assembly, Jemma worked in the Strategy & Commercial Trade team at The Iconic. She began her career at Lazard Australia, where she was a member of the Investment Banking team for c. 2 years.

Jemma holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Economics majoring in Finance and Information Systems from the University of Queensland.

Steven Li

Finance Manager

Steven joined the AFM finance team in March 2023. Prior to joining AFM, Steven spent c. 5 years at Scentre Group working in the Operations Finance Team as a Senior Analyst.

In his previous role, he managed the reporting and forecasting for Operating Capital within all Australia & New Zealand Westfield Centres.

Steven joins the team to support our cashflow, forecasting and fund modelling of AFM.

Steven holds a double degree in Applied Finance and Professional Accounting from Macquarie University and is a member of Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand.

Tim Meurer

Chief Investment Officer & Investment Committee Member

Tim has over 16 years’ experience in real estate investments, most recently as the Head of Acquisitions, Australia and New Zealand for Invesco Real Estate‘s Asia platform.

In this role he was directly responsible for sourcing and executing over $1.5bn of transactions for the Fund and separate account strategies.

Tim has transacted on c. $4.5bn of real estate transactions across all major sectors, geographies and capital structures.

Previous roles include Transaction Manager at CorVal, Property Consultant, Corporate Advisory & Restructuring at Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Senior Analyst, Investment Sales at Jones Lang LaSalle.

Tim holds a Bachelor of Economics and Social Sciences from the University of Sydney.

Nina Miller

Senior Legal & Compliance Manager

Nina joined AFM in February 2024 and manages compliance, company secretarial duties and legal matters for AFM.

In her previous role, Nina was the Compliance & Risk Manager at Blackbird Ventures, managing the compliance and risk management frameworks, policies and processes to ensure that Blackbird met its regulatory and investor obligations.

Nina holds a Bachelor of Arts (Politics & International Relations)/Bachelor of Laws from the Australian National University. Nina also holds a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice (The College of Law) and was admitted as a solicitor to the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2019.

Louis O'Loughlin

Head of Investments

Louis has over 10 years experience in real estate, most recently as Associate Director, Acquisitions for Invesco Real Estate.

During his time at Invesco, Louis was a key member of the acquisitions team that was responsible for the sourcing, underwriting and execution of investment opportunities on behalf of Invesco’s various core and value add strategies. He has experience executing transactions across major and alternative real estate sectors as both debt and equity.

Louis holds a Bachelor of Business (Property) from the University of South Australia, a Master of Commerce (Finance and Banking) from The University of Sydney, and is a CFA charterholder, 2015-2023.

Nicholas Rodwell

Head of Capital

Nick joined AFM in February 2023 to run the Capital and Investor Relations team. In this role, Nick is responsible for the overarching capital strategy for AFM and managing capital raisings into the platform.

Nick has c. 10 years of Real Estate corporate finance experience most recently as an Assistant Director in Rothschild & Co’s Real Estate team in London. Prior to this, Nick worked in Rothschild & Co’s Real Estate team in Sydney and KPMG’s Merger & Acquisitions business.

During this time, Nick has advised on over $30bn of transactions across public and private M&A, debt and equity advisory.

Nick holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance and Economics) from the University of Sydney.

Darlia Symons

Senior Investments Analyst

Darlia is a Senior Investments Analyst and is involved in the underwriting and execution of AFM’s Real Estate Investments across Australia and New Zealand.

Prior to joining Assembly, Darlia was an Investment Analyst at Resolution Life having initially joined as part of the AMP Graduate Program where she gained experience across various Actuarial and Real Estate functions.

Darlia holds a Bachelor of Actuarial Studies (Finance) from the University of New South Wales.

Michael Gutman

Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Director & Investment Committee Member

Michael founded AFM in 2019 to leverage his extensive real estate experience into a diversified portfolio of attractive risk-adjusted investments through-the-cycle.

Prior to founding AFM, Michael gained his real estate experience across the key asset classes over the past four decades at key Australian listed groups including Mirvac, Lendlease and Westfield Corporation.

Originally qualifying as an architect in 1980, Michael made a significant contribution to the strategic growth of Westfield throughout a 25-year tenure (culminating in the sale of the Company in 2018). He held various roles domestically and internationally at Westfield, including Global President and Chief Operating Officer, and also served as main board Director from 2014-2018. The team at Westfield under his responsibility numbered 1000 people in the US and UK in the fields of Development, Design, Construction, Leasing, Management and Marketing.

Michael received the Officer of the British Empire in 2015 for services to retail and regeneration in the UK following his leadership of the successful redevelopments at Westfield London and Westfield Stratford city.

In addition to his experience with the creation and operation of very large (circa $1bn) retail real estate projects in Australia, the UK and the US (including Westfield Doncaster, Westfield Fountain Gate, Westfield London, Westfield Stratford City and Westfield Century City), Michael also led the identification of many value add opportunities and new strategic directions for the Westfield portfolio which were highly profitable and value accretive. These included several thousand apartment sites for sale or rental, commercial office buildings which were built speculatively or pre let to major government departments, and surplus land disposed of to other high value users. Michael worked closely with Westfield’s founding shareholders and leadership team, growing the company over almost half its listed history.

As with ADPF1, Michael is a significant investor in ADPF2 to ensure maximum alignment with investors.

Michael leverages his background and business network to secure and deliver opportunities for the funds.

Phil Green

Director, Investment Member Committee, Founder & Partner, Alceon

Phil Green has over 30 years’ experience specialising in structured finance and advisory, leasing, asset based financing, principal investment and funds management.

Phil has extensive expertise in property, financial assets, infrastructure and other forms of asset backed finance including aircraft, rail and mortgages.

Prior to joining Alceon, Phil was a partner of Babcock & Brown for 24 years and was appointed as Chief Executive Officer on its listing in 2004. Before joining Babcock & Brown he worked for Arthur Andersen specialising in taxation, cross border leasing and structured finance.

Phil holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Law degrees from the University of NSW, is a Chartered Accountant and was admitted as a solicitor in NSW in 1978.

Simon Shakesheff

Director, Investment Member Committee (Independent)

Simon has been an AFM board member since inception. He has more than 30 years’ of property and finance experience in roles covering strategy, debt and equity finance, and mergers and acquisitions. Mr Shakesheff’s previous executive roles include equities analyst covering listed real estate and retail companies at Macquarie Bank and JP Morgan, and corporate advisor to major real estate groups at UBS and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He was formerly the Head of Strategy and Stakeholder Relations at Stockland Trust Group.

Mr Shakesheff is Chair of Kiwi Property Trust and HomeCo Daily Needs REIT. He is also a non-executive director of Cbus Property, SGCH (formerly St George Community Housing) and Ingenia Communities.

Mr Shakesheff has a Master of Commerce degree in Finance and Accounting from UNSW.