Global commercial real estate brokerage and investment management company JLL has named a technology-industry veteran to lead its technology development strategy and delivery.

Yao Morin will serve as chief technology officer, a newly created position, and will oversee the newly centralized engineering group with JLL's technology division, JLL Technologies.

Since joining JLL Technologies as chief data officer in 2020, Morin has led the business line’s gathering, extracting, storing and leveraging data assets across all of its businesses to develop value for investors, occupiers and the broader JLL organization — a Fortune 500 company with annual revenue of $20.9 billion and operations in over 80 countries around the world.

“Yao’s leadership and experience will bolster our organization and strengthen the alignment between product and data strategy, which is critical as commercial real estate evolves into a data-driven enterprise,” said Yishai Lerner, co-chief executive officer at JLL Technologies, in a corporate statement announcing the move. “Uniting our application engineers, data engineers, analysts and data scientists from across the organization within this new engineering group headed by Yao will ensure we continue to maximize business value for our clients through our tech and our talent.”

Morin's team at JLL Technologies are working on projects that incorporate the use of data and technology to reduce energy consumption and make the building lifecycle, from construction to operations, more sustainable. Morin emphasizes that using data to make a company’s real estate footprint more sustainable and efficient is one of the most effective ways to get on the path to net-zero and meet long-term sustainability goals.

Prior to joining JLL Technologies, Morin worked as chief data officer and head of U.S. engineering at StubHub, where she oversaw its company-wide data strategy as well as the execution of data transformation. Before that, she handled the development of Intuit’s data infrastructure as head of data science and machine learning engineering and as a principal data scientist.

Morin holds doctorate and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor’s degree in information engineering from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Morin also holds several patents for her work related to user experience, data analytics, data management and machine learning.

Based in San Francisco, California, Morin also supports early-stage start-ups and promotes diversity in the data industry.

Jihane Boury has joined Savills as a vice chairman. In her new role, Boury will focus on tenant advisory services for occupiers of office space across the Dallas/Fort Worth region.

Boury joins Savills from CBRE, where she served as a senior vice president and represented a client list that includes Orix Corp., Lument and Moroch Partners. She is also a registered interior designer with experience in architectural design and construction planning. Boury previously worked at Colliers, where she was consistently ranked as a top 10 national producer, and before that spent 13 years as director of leasing and development at Harwood International.

Joining Boury at Savills is Clay Vaughn, who most recently served as an executive vice president and co-leader of the technology and media practice at CBRE, and before that was a senior managing director at Newmark. They will work alongside Vice Chairmen Charles Daggett, Dina Zavislak and Kelly Winn in Savills' Dallas office.

Kidder Mathews has hired Dave Carder as a senior vice president in its Phoenix office.

In his new role, Carder will continue working with tenants and landlords to facilitate leases and sales of commercial properties throughout greater Phoenix. He specializes in pro-forma analysis for investments, rehabilitation projects and new build-to-suit and speculative developments.

Carder brings more than 27 years of brokerage experience, having completed more than $1 billion in transactions totaling over 12 million square feet throughout his career for a client list that includes Blackrock, Bank of America, Hines, Invesco, Lincoln Property Co., Verizon Wireless, Arizona State University and Harvard Investments. He most recently served as a managing director at Cushman & Wakefield and began his career at CBRE after graduating from Stanford.

Midwest real estate investment and development company United Properties has promoted Laura Rogers to general counsel and senior vice president.

In her expanded role, Rogers will join the firm's strategic leadership team and provide transactional oversight as well as legal guidance and management to improve the efficiency of legal services and internal processes. She will also continue to manage the company's insurance portfolio, claims and dispute resolution matters.

Rogers joined United Properties four years ago as the organization’s first in-house legal counsel, and since then she has helped the firm navigate the closing of the RBC Gateway loan, licensing of a Four Seasons Hotel and the company's expansion into Austin, Texas. Rogers previously served as senior counsel at Empire State Development in New York, as in-house counsel for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. and as assistant general counsel for the New York City Department of Transportation. She holds a Juris Doctor degree from Indiana University, Bloomington.

Jason R. Kaye has joined Greystone affiliate Greystone Housing Impact Investors LP as managing director in the firm's office in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

In his new role, Kaye will focus on originating and structuring tax-exempt loan and bond financing transactions, including construction financing, for affordable apartments and low-income housing tax credit, or LIHTC, properties. He reports directly to Kenneth C. Rogozinski, CEO of the partnership.

Kaye most recently served as a senior vice president at Regions Bank, where he handled debt and tax credit equity, transaction structuring and loan executions for local and national affordable housing developers. He previously held similar roles at Bank of America and Citigroup Global Markets, after beginning his career with the New York City Economic Development Corp. Kaye holds Series 52, 7 and 63 licenses and earned a master's degree in real estate finance from New York University and a Master of Regional Planning degree from Cornell University.

Nadel Architecture + Planning, a Los Angeles-based architecture and design firm, has appointed Studio Director of Retail Brand Experience Ryan Weller as a principal and shareholder in the firm.

In his expanded role, Weller will continue to execute business development strategy and strengthen the firm's presence in the high-street retail sector as the company celebrates its milestone 50 years in business.

Weller joined Nadel and established its retail brand experience studio in 2020. Before that, he worked as director of retail for Menemsha Architecture, where he led a team that served retail and commercial clients. Earlier in his career he worked for various architectural firms, managing and designing retail spaces as well as restaurants, healthcare facilities, financial institutions and office interiors.

Shopping center owner and development firm NewMark Merrill Cos. has promoted Michael Mendez to vice president of operations.

In his expanded role, Mendez will oversee NewMark Merrill's southern region in California, covering San Diego County and the surrounding areas.

Mendez joined NewMark Merrill as an assistant property manager in 2004, when the company owned and operated just five properties in the market. Since then, the company has grown is South portfolio to 33 properties encompassing 3.3 million square feet and valued in excess of $1 billion. He most recently served as regional property manager.