SoCal Industry Roundup: Tech Chief Moves From Goldman Sachs to Blackstone
By Greg Cornfield February 9, 2020 7:45 pm
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Some national and Southern California-based real estate players brought new talent to their ranks, including a new tech expert at Blackstone (BX), and an associate at Los Angeles-based Pircher, Nichols & Meeks LLP.
Blackstone announced that John Stecher will be the firm’s next chief technology officer on February 24. He will lead the firm’s global technology organization and help advise the firm’s investing teams and portfolio companies on technology-related matters. He will report to Michael Chae, Blackstone’s chief financial officer.
Stecher was previously group chief technology officer and group chief innovation officer at Barclays, as well as at Goldman Sachs. He will succeed Bill Murphy, who led Blackstone’s technology platform for more than eight years. Murphy will continue to serve as a senior advisor and serve on boards of various Blackstone portfolio companies.
“Technology and innovation is a strategic priority for the firm,” Chae said in a statement. “Blackstone has made terrific progress over the past decade, under Bill’s leadership, in building and implementing technology solutions to enable our business groups and portfolio companies to better leverage technology to drive growth and serve our investors.”
Pircher, Nichols & Meeks, the national real estate law firm, announced that William Swanson joined their firm. He previously served as an honors intern in the trading and markets division of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C.
Newmark (NMRK) Knight Frank also announced that industrial investment specialist Andrew Briner will be executive managing director for the firm’s Western U.S. capital markets team, which is led by Kevin Shannon.
Briner’s wide range of assignments include national portfolio dispositions, partial interest sales, forward take-outs, joint venture equity for development and structured land sales.
He previously worked as managing director for JLL (JLL), and has worked on the disposition and capitalization of institutional investment properties. Over the past 14 years, he completed transactions with an aggregate consideration exceeding $24.5 billion on behalf of REITs, pension fund advisors, private equity funds, national developers and private capital groups.
