Asset manager Schroders has announced a series of senior leadership appointments globally and in the Asia-Pacific region to support growth within its private assets business.

Sophie van Oosterom is named as global head of real estate. Based in London, she is responsible for overseeing the growth of the company’s direct and indirect real estate business. She joined Schroders from CBRE Global Investors with experience overseeing operations, investment strategy and performance, underwriting, and programme development in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Chantale Pelletier is the new global head of infrastructure, private assets. Based in Paris, she will focus on leading the growth and development of the firm’s infrastructure investment platform across a range of sectors, such as transport, renewables, energy, digital infrastructure and utilities. Pelletier has over two decades of experience in building and managing infrastructure investment portfolios at Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.

In addition, Natalie Howard will take over as the head of real estate debt. Based in London, she will be responsible for building a full-service real estate debt platform offering clients the complete range of risk-and-return investing throughout the real estate debt spectrum. Howard has extensive experience spanning debt capital markets, balance sheet lending, and fund management gained via senior roles at various organisations over her career.

In Asia-Pacific, Schroders has expanded its Australian private debt team with Tim Hallam joining the firm as portfolio manager. He will be part of the team responsible for growing and managing private debt capability in Australia. Hallam joined from Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility where he was responsible for the origination and execution of loans benefiting Northern Australia.

“The combined experience of our new private assets leadership team can help us unearth opportunities in different specialist sectors and develop solutions that meet the investment objectives of clients globally,” says Georg Wunderlin, Schroders’ global head of private assets.