The Collective rejigs leadership with senior departure

The Collective has made some major changes to its leadership, as it shifts its focus to development of its consented pipeline. Chief executive Reza Merchant has moved to chairman and former executive director James Penfold has left the business after three years. Merchant will focus on the long-term business with the board of directors. Penfold, who previously led on planning, will advise through an external consultancy role. The Collective has promoted Simon Koster to chief executive. He will split his time between overseeing project delivery in the US and UK. Koster joined the business in 2019 as head of US development and became group development and operations director in 2020. He previously worked at JDS Development Group for a decade, delivering residential, hospitality and mixed-use schemes. Merchant founded The Collective in 2012. The developer has 1,623 units in operation and a development pipeline of 6,590 in the UK, US and Germany. Merchant previously said he aimed to grow this to 100,000 beds by 2025. Recent development has been funded by the COLIV fund from DTZ Investors, which aims to deploy £1bn on six to 10 projects in London over 10 years. Merchant said: “I’ve seen the business evolve from a small start-up to the respected global company it is today – and this transition of daily leadership to Simon now will set us up for success in the long term, and enable me to focus on our longer-term vision and purpose as a business.” Simon Koster, chief executive of The Collective, said: “My aim is to take the company that Reza has built to the next stage of its evolution and maintaining our global leadership position, as we continue to focus on delivering our global pipeline of projects and operating our existing portfolio.” To send feedback, e-mail emma.rosser@egi.co.uk or tweet @EmmaARosser or @estatesgazette Image © The Collective