BREL Forum in Riga to Bring Together Leading Baltic and European Real Estate Experts

The annual Baltic Real Estate Leaders, or BREL, forum dedicated to the real estate sector and its latest trends will take place at the VEF Culture Palace on 2 November this year. The forum will traditionally bring leading industry experts, businesspeople and investors from the Baltics and other European countries to Riga to discuss various important issues and challenges related to the sector, as well as forecast its future development and promote understanding of attracting foreign investment. This year, the BREL programme will focus in depth on smart urban planning, current developments in the retail sector, and the development of future technologies.

One of the forum’s key speakers, who will open the first BREL session, is Henriette Vamberg, partner and CEO of Danish architecture firm Gehl Architects. She will speak about creating people-friendly cities, citing real examples of urban transformation projects and improvement strategies based on research into people’s everyday habits. Damian Harrington, Regional Director for EMEA at Colliers International, will discuss attracting talent and investment to cities that serve as models for other European regions, while Gijs Klomp, Investment Director at Nepi Rockcastle from the Netherlands, will share his perspective on starting a business in the Baltic market, as well as the challenges and growth opportunities associated with this process. He will examine the key advantages of the Baltic market and current developments in the retail sector, address the opportunities offered by clusters in Central and Eastern Europe, and discuss the legal aspects of these processes in various countries across the region.

The topic of the rapid development and transformation of the working environment, highlighting the vital role of sustained productivity, innovation and talent attraction, will be addressed by Keith Silverang, CEO of the Finnish real estate company Technopolis. Sohvi Rajamäki, CEO of Schneider Electric in the Baltics, will speak at the forum about future trends in commercial real estate, including “green building” standards, activity-based workplaces, and the impact of the Internet of Things on building construction and maintenance policies. Finally, Zulfukar Tosun from Germany, a representative of Metro ECE Center management, a shopping-centre management company, will give an informative lecture on the future of traditional shopping centres and the impact of digitalisation on consumer habits.