The Urban Land Institute (ULI) has announced the appointment of Alberto Valls, managing partner of real estate at Deloitte Spain & EMEA, as chair of ULI Madrid. He succeeds Alfonso Benavides, senior advisor to JLL in Spain, Secretary of the Board of AEDAS Homes, S.A. and Non-exec Director at Auxadi Holdco, and officially began his voluntary two-year term on 1 May 2021.

ULI is the world’s oldest and largest network of cross-disciplinary real estate experts, with more than 45,000 members globally. ULI Madrid is one of two active local councils in Spain and several hundred property professionals currently make up the membership, which also includes corporate partnerships with AECOM, Aedas Homes, Grupo Lar, JLL, MDI and Mutua Madrilena. It has an active events calendar, including for Young Leaders (members aged under 35) and NEXT members (aged 35–45), a group mentoring programme and the council produces innovative research, such as a report looking at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on housing and offices, published last month.

Upon his appointment, Alberto Valls said “I am very grateful and honoured by the confidence members of ULI have shown in me by electing me to this senior position at such a key moment for the real estate sector, facing the new scenario arising from the pandemic. I would like to thank outgoing chair, Alfonso Benavides, for his impressive work over the last nine years. Under his leadership, ULI Madrid continued growing with new initiatives and providing innovative expertise to our community with outstanding success.”

Alberto Valls has been an active supporter of ULI Madrid since joining as a member in 2005. As chair of ULI Madrid, he aims to promote the collective and multidisciplinary understanding of the membership community to offer the best response to today’s challenges in real estate and urban development in Spain, for example related to urban regeneration, sustainability and changing societal needs. “We have the opportunity to build a better future by bringing together the multidisciplinary points of view of ULI’s community and sharing their knowledge and best practices, and will do so through research, roundtable and events, such as the inaugural ULI Spain Annual Conference, which will take place next summer,” said Valls.

Lisette van Doorn, CEO of ULI Europe, said: “Alberto brings a wealth of experience and knowledge of the real estate industry in Spain and is a long-time ULI member. We look forward to working with him and the executive committee in growing the membership and furthering the mission of ULI in Spain, building on the tremendous work of outgoing ULI Madrid chair, Alfonso Benavides.”

Marnix Galle, chairman of ULI Europe and executive chairman of Belgian developer Immobel, said: “Alberto is a renowned industry leader who will bring a fresh new perspective and new ideas to ULI Madrid, to further develop the council. We see huge potential to advance the network in Spain – a recent ULI Spanish webinar attracted hundreds of attendees from across Europe, showing that there is an appetite to learn and share knowledge in this region.”

Alberto Valls, MRICS, is the managing partner of the real estate & real assets practice at Deloitte in Spain & EMEA and is a member of the Deloitte Global Real Estate Leadership Committee. Alberto started his career 26 years ago at Arthur Andersen and became a partner of Deloitte in 2008. Since he took the role, the real estate advisory practice has grown to more than 120, by developing services for the whole real estate investment cycle.

He is an experienced speaker at high-profile relevant real estate events including Barcelona Meeting Point, GRI and Madrid Stock Exchange. He graduated in Business Administration from Ramon Llull of Barcelona.

For more information about ULI Madrid and its programme of events, visit madrid.uli.org.