Meet our leadership team
Colin Wright - Founder & CEO
Colin is the Founder of the Macintyre Group and has over 25 years’ real estate experience in both the Gulf and the United Kingdom in fund management, asset management, development and investment primarily within the hospitality, leisure and residential sectors.
Colin started his career with Lend Lease where he worked on various master development schemes across Western Europe including Siemens ‘Isar Sud’ project in Munich. In 2004, he moved to the UAE and worked with Majid Al Futtaim Investments (MAF) where he completed and developed Ski Dubai as an integral member of the Mall of the Emirates development team.
In 2006, Colin joined Kenmore Property Group to head their Middle East business and completed a number of major residential and commercial property transactions in Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, including the setup and management of various regulated property funds in the region. Colin has spearheaded and launched property funds in the Gulf and East Africa as well as incorporating Emirates REIT, the Middle East’s’ first official Shari’ah compliant REIT, domiciled in Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and regulated under the DFSA.
From 2011 Colin was the CIO for Select Group in Dubai where he masterminded and delivered a 5 year business plan to acquire, develop and invest in the UK and European real estate sector taking advantage of the post 2008 financial crisis where he acquired 4 and 5 star hotels, residential and development assets out of the ‘bad banks,’ governments and administrators. Colin is the CEO for the Macintyre Group based between Dubai and the UK.
Colin holds an MBA, has studied at Harvard Business School and is a Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Edward Thorn - Head of Development
Edward heads all aspects of development management for the group. Starting each new projects as a blank piece of paper, he creates the investment model, the brief, oversees the design and construction and continues running each development through occupancy and operation.
He has spent more than sixteen years living in the Middle East, originally working on the Zabeel Investments development portfolio for EC Harris, before spending eight years with ADPI, the French engineering subsidiary of Aéroports de Paris. He has lived in Dubai (UAE), Jeddah (KSA), Tripoli (Libya), and worked extensively throughout the region where he has focused on business development, contract, project and development management within residential, commercial, retail, mixed-use, industrial, logistics, distribution, hospitality and aviation mega-projects.
Edward began his career in Melbourne Australia, working for the mid-sized contractor McCorkell Construction. After a tenure in commercial real estate firm Allard Shelton, he joined Watpac Construction and worked in the Whitsunday Islands in the Great Barrier Reef.
In parallel with his other activities, in 2012 he acquired 18ha of beachfront land near the city of Pemba in Northern Mozambique, where he is developing a mixed-use residential and hospitality project related to the extraction of natural gas in the nearby Rovuma Basin.
Edward holds a Bachelor of Planning & Design / Bachelor of Property & Construction (Property) from the University of Melbourne, and an MBA in Construction and Real Estate from the University of Reading, UK.
Kerrie Alder - Head of Asset Management
Kerrie has over 20 years experience in UAE real estate, and holds over 30 years' experience in the financial services sector, including fund structuring, product development, asset management & property management.
She developed multi-manager funds and other investment structures for various large institutions in both the UK & the Middle East. This included Emirates Real Estate Fund (now ENBD REIT) which she structured, developed & launched from concept, and then managed through two market cycles with AED 2 billion AUM (pre-REIT).
Kerrie has implemented property and asset management strategies client side and has sourced, acquired, and disposed of numerous assets over multiple asset classes. She has also built and restructured property and asset management teams both in-house and for service providers.
Kerrie brings a unique perspective to the team having been all sides of the table - Landlord, investor, tenant & service provider - and as such is a ‘big picture’ thinker who recognises the perspectives and objectives of all stakeholders.