This article originally appeared in Industry Moves.
Industry veteran Craig Thompson has joined Real Asset Management Group (RAM) as chief technology officer.
His appointment comes just as RAM has confirmed plans to list the RAM Essential Services Property Fund on the Australian Securities Exchange this week.
Thompson has spent 20 years building and implementing technology solutions across financial services, legal, and hospitality sectors to unlock new business capabilities, drive efficiency and solve business problems.
He joins from MA Financial Group where he headed the group’s technology division. There, he was responsible for the development and delivery of MA’s IT strategy, transformation program, and technology roadmap.
Before that, he worked as head of program delivery at Dimension Data Cloud Services.
At RAM Thompson is tasked with leading the wealth firm’s digital transformation journey. He will spearhead work to digitise the onboarding process for the group’s wholesale and high net worth clients and create direct access to RAM funds through new digital pathways.
RAM Australia’s chief executive Australia Scott Kelly said Thompson was joining the group at a time of strong growth and would be able to immediately add value as RAM continued to increase scale across the Asia Pacific and other regions.
“Craig is a highly adaptive, results-driven, and innovative technology leader with a broad range of experience across the technology fields. He holds a proven track record in developing and implementing IT strategies, unlocking new business capabilities, and solving business problems through the deployment of technology,” Kelly added.
“Joining the team at their expansive growth period is an exciting opportunity for anybody,” Thompson added.
The asset manager specialises in real estate, credit, and private equity markets for institutions and wealthy families globally. It has more than 100 finance professionals managing more than $2 billion in assets.
Later this week, RAM will list the RAM Essential Services Property Fund on the ASX. The fund is expected to have a market capitalisation of $521.1 million.
It will initially own 33 Australian properties on listing worth $706.3 million, split evenly between geographically diversified essential retail and medical real estate assets. These include sites leased to private hospitals group Healthecare and supermarket chains Woolworths and Coles.
Funds raised through the IPO will be used to repay debt and buy more properties.