Kathleen VERELST

About Kathleen VERELST

Kathleen Verelst is a real estate and investment executive who has become a member of the Management Board of Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield SE (URW), where she has served since January 2026 as Chief Investment Officer. In this role, she contributes to the group’s strategic decisions and oversees investment-related matters, capital allocation and portfolio development. URW’s governance pages confirm both her appointment to the Management Board and her CIO remit. Prior to joining URW, Kathleen Verelst worked at Morgan Stanley, indicating a background shaped by investment banking, strategic analysis and capital-markets exposure. This experience suggests a profile comfortable with financial decision-making, transaction discipline and the evaluation of long-term value creation. Her previous role likely provided strong command of the trade-offs between growth, returns, balance-sheet efficiency and risk management, skills that are highly relevant in a listed real-estate environment. At URW, her appointment comes at a time when the group continues to refine its portfolio and investment strategy. URW is a major owner and operator of shopping centres in Europe and the United States, and the CIO function is central in determining acquisitions, disposals, refinancing priorities and broader capital deployment. Kathleen Verelst’s nomination therefore signals the group’s intention to strengthen investment expertise at board level and support a more selective, value-oriented approach to portfolio management. Her position on the Management Board makes her a key executive on matters of financial discipline, asset valuation and sustainable value creation. For a listed real-estate company of URW’s scale, this also requires close interaction with shareholders, operating teams and financing partners. Overall, her path from Morgan Stanley to a top governance role at URW reflects an executive profile anchored in markets, investments and strategic execution.