Charles Irvine Strengthens Board and CEE Industrial Team
Charles Irvine, the independent pan-European real estate capital markets advisory firm, announced two senior appointments. Tony Horrell, former chief executive of Colliers UK & Ireland, joins the firm’s Advisory Board as Non-Executive Director and Senior Advisor. John Palmer FRICS SIOR joins as Head of Industrial & Logistics CEE, based in Warsaw.
The appointments follow the 2025 merger of Charles Irvine Group and ARC Capital Markets, which brought together the businesses founded by David Cunnington and Neil Gregory-Eaves. The firm has teams in seven countries and remains wholly owned by its management and senior team.
“Tony and John are key appointments, and both are people I’ve worked with for years,” said Neil Gregory-Eaves, Managing Partner at Charles Irvine. “Decades of experience, genuine expertise, and strong relationships across the industry — they will strengthen this firm in ways that go well beyond their roles.”
Tony Horrell — Advisory Board
Horrell joins the Advisory Board, chaired by Andy Martin, former UK chief executive of BNP Paribas Real Estate. He will also work with the Managing Partners on strategy and growth initiatives, as well as expanding the firm’s extensive network of investor and lender relationships.
Horrell led Colliers’ UK and Ireland business as chief executive from 2010, building it to more than 1,000 people across 16 offices, and sat on the firm’s EMEA Board, stepping down as non-executive chairman at the end of 2025. Before Colliers, he spent over 27 years at JLL, latterly responsible for capital markets across Europe.
“Charles Irvine is at a great stage in its journey — established and credible, and boutique enough to be able to meaningfully shape and contribute to what it becomes,” said Horrell. “Having spent a career building real estate service businesses and working in European capital markets, that is the point at which my experience is worth most.”
John Palmer — Industrial & Logistics CEE
Palmer will drive the firm’s industrial and logistics practice across Central and Eastern Europe, advising investors, developers and operators on sales, acquisitions, equity raising and joint ventures, and originating industrial financing to the debt advisory team. He will focus on build-to-suit and build-to-own requirements and on the regional data centre market, segments drawing an increasing share of capital.
Palmer has worked in Poland for more than 25 years, joining from Deloitte’s Real Estate Advisory team after senior industrial roles at Savills, BNP Paribas Real Estate and CBRE, where he was Industrial Managing Director in Poland for a decade.
“The BTS and data centre projects coming through are larger, more technically specified and considerably harder to fund than the deals that came before them,” said Palmer. “That is where sector expertise and a full capital market offering under one roof becomes essential.”