KKR announced the appointment of Ian Williamson as a Managing Director and Head of Core Plus Real Estate in Europe, effective immediately. Williamson, who will be based in London, joins KKR from BlackRock where he was Portfolio Manager and will report to Guillaume Cassou, Head of European Real Estate at KKR. Williamson will oversee formation and lead KKR Real Estate’s pan-European core plus focused strategy, which will focus on investing behind high quality, substantially stabilized assets with long-term growth potential. Williamson has worked within the real estate industry in Europe for 19 years. At BlackRock, Williamson oversaw the fundraise of €550 million of third party capital for BlackRock Eurozone Core Property Fund and developed and drove the fund’s investment strategy. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2018, Williamson was a Regional Director and Fund Manager at LaSalle Investment Management. Williamson had primary responsibility for the LaSalle Encore+ Fund, for which he invested more than €1.36 billion of equity on behalf of the Fund across Western-Europe. He earned a BSc degree from the University of Reading in 2001, an MSc degree in Land Management in 2002, and qualified as a Chartered Surveyor with the RICS in 2004.