Taronga Group Appoints Dr Sven Sylvester
as Corporate Innovation Lead and Investment Director
Taronga Group is delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Sven Sylvester as Corporate Innovation Lead for Taronga Venture Advisory and Investment Director for the RealTech Ventures Fund.
Sven is an experienced management consultant with extensive experience in technical due diligence and business performance optimisation. Prior to joining Taronga Group, Sven was at Bain & Company working across Australia, China and South East Asia and before that he completed his PhD in Physics at the University of Cambridge. His experience building business operations in Asia and technology expertise will be a great addition to the Taronga team.
As Corporate Innovation Lead, Sven will be working closely with our Real Estate Partners across Asia to develop frameworks and assist them to accelerate the implementation of new technologies and innovation impacting real estate and infrastructure. This will focus on developing new revenue streams, increasing operational efficiencies and enhancing the overall customer experience. Furthermore, Sven will be working closely with our Managing Partners on investments for the RealTech Ventures Fund and will be responsible for deal origination, technical due diligence processes and assisting our portfolio companies with implementation activities with our Real Estate Partners.
Innovation and the Global Real Estate Sector
There has been a surge in venture activity across Asia and globally, with companies developing technologies and innovation which impact traditional models of real estate and the wider built environment. Investment in this space has increased over 20 times in the last 5 years.
Whilst leading institutions are now using innovation and technology as a differentiator, adoption remains slow across the industry. In a recent survey by KPMG, 97% of real estate groups think digital and technological innovation will impact their business, but only 34% have a clear enterprise-wide digital strategy. Embracing innovation will help major owners and managers to enhance their existing portfolios to deliver meaningful consumer experiences to improve portfolio returns.
Taronga Venture Advisory
Taronga Venture Advisory (TVA) is designed to accelerate the adoption of technology and innovation within major real estate groups across Asia. TVA provides strategic advice and support for our corporate partners to design new operating models and change behaviours forcing existing models to evolve.
Following on from his recent appointment, Dr Sven Sylvester said “Consumers are changing how they interact with the built environment and we are going to see this rapidly accelerate over the next 5 years. It is an exciting time for Real Estate groups to rethink how they use data and technology to enhance the consumer experience whilst improving operational performance. There are many new exciting revenue streams to take advantage of and I look forward to helping our institutional and corporate partners on their transformation journeys”.
