BBRC (Bristol & Bath Regional Capital) has introduced two new senior roles to its team, with a further two roles to follow by the end of the year.
The move is part of the impact investor’s ambitious five-year growth strategy.
Paul Dennis-Jones has been appointed as BBRC’s chief investment officer. He will be responsible for leading investment strategy as well as assisting with capital raising, fund structuring and deal origination.
Dennis-Jones has held pivotal positions in some of the largest European real estate investment managers, including CBRE, UBS and most recently PGIM, where as managing director and head of UK fund management, he was a key figure in growing the UK real estate business from scratch to over £2bn of AUM in the last 13 years.
The second recent appointment is Shane James, who has been recruited to the new head of operations role, to oversee and manage the day-to-day business operations. James joins from property construction and management firm, Corinthian, bringing experience of driving operational and regulatory change and capital investment in high growth SMEs and PLCs, as well as broader experience across retail, banking, housing, operations and sales.
BBRC has also added further experience to its board, welcoming Leonie Fleming as a new non-executive director. Fleming has spent most of her career in financial services, most recently as general counsel, commercial and wealth at NatWest.
She has extensive experience across a wide range of strategic business issues, including supporting the delivery of complex regulatory programmes, product and policy development (including ESG related activity), innovation, risk management and business transformation. She has also played an active role in developing talent, championing diversity and inclusion, and mentoring small businesses as part of the national Be The Business programme.
Over the next three months, BBRC is aiming to expand again with the recruitment of two new investment managers. These roles are specifically to help deliver two of its key objectives: developing a new housing investment fund to deliver thousands of new low carbon homes and address the housing crisis; and supporting the Net Zero agenda in Bristol and the wider region through a consortium-led new Western Net Zero Accelerator Fund.
They will be supported by current BBRC team member Georgina Cremin, who has been recently promoted from housing executive to investment associate.
BBRC chief executive Ed Rowberry said: “We know that place-based impact investment can deliver meaningful solutions at scale to meet the needs of local communities. In the coming year, we will be setting up two new funds that focus on addressing the housing and climate crises.
“These two new appointments bring additional specialised expertise to help us deliver our ambitious targets; Paul and Shane have huge amounts of experience between them in the pensions and institutional investment markets and we’re delighted to have them on board. We’re now starting to recruit for two new investment managers to join them and expand our team even further.”
In the last five years, BBRC has created significant local impact by successfully brokering or placing over £60m investment in businesses or initiatives to address long-standing inequalities, tackle environmental issues and responsibly manage property assets. Last month, BBRC was named for the fourth year running as one of the NatWest top 100 social enterprises.