Rita-Rose Gagné to succeed Atkins as Hammerson CEO

UK REIT Hammerson has appointed Rita-Rose Gagné, formerly with Ivanhoé Cambridge, as its new chief executive officer.

Gagné joined Ivanhoé Cambridge in 2006 and was most recently president of growth markets where she was responsible for $7.6bn of property assets in the Asia Pacific and Latin America regions.

Gagné, a lawyer, also holds an MBA from McGill-HEC Montreal. It is expected that she will take up her new role before the end of the year and David Atkins will continue to serve as CEO until then.

Hammerson chair Robert Noel said Gagné has “an excellent track record in international real estate investment, building high-quality teams, developing strategic partnerships, execution and delivering results.”

Gagné said the unprecedented change in the retail and real estate sectors make it, “a very exciting time to be joining the business.”

“I look forward to working with Hammerson’s experienced team and all its stakeholders to both navigate through the challenges, but also seek out the opportunities to create value moving forward.”

Hammerson will pay Gagné a gross annual salary of £672,000 with a pension allowance that is 10% of base salary.