Montano Real Estate

Montano Real Estate has the ambition to become Germany’s leading independent investment specialist. To get there, they needed a recruitment partner who understood that the right hire in this market means more than technical capability; it means finding people who are genuinely embedded in the places where they work.

Founded in 2013, Montano Real Estate is a leading independent specialist in high performance commercial property investments across Germany. With over €2 billion in assets under management and offices in Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin, the firm serves institutional investors worldwide, targeting Core to Value-Add returns. Montano positions itself as the local partner in the German market, combining strategic entrepreneurial vision with a genuinely hands on approach to asset management.

The Challenge

As Montano grew from a boutique firm into an established investment platform, the central recruitment challenge was about more than headcount. The business needed to scale rapidly while preserving a very specific culture, one built around entrepreneurial thinking, technical rigour and deep local market knowledge.

The candidates who would thrive at Montano were rarely the ones actively looking for a move. Whether the brief was for a regional lead to take full ownership of the Berlin office or a specialist to manage a new logistics joint venture with Carlyle, finding people with both institutional capability and a boutique mentality required a recruitment partner with genuine reach into a particular type of talent.

The Brief
Macdonald & Company was engaged to support Montano’s expansion across multiple functions and regions over a sustained period. The mandates were consistently specific and senior in nature.

At leadership level, the focus was on identifying strategic heads capable of driving a scalable, digitally supported asset management platform. Regionally, the business needed team leads for Frankfurt and Berlin with deep local broker networks and the confidence to operate independently within small, motivated teams. Across all functions, Montano valued what they described internally as entrepreneurial all-rounders: individuals with strong technical foundations, leasing confidence and a genuine willingness to take full ownership of their portfolios. Sector specialist roles in logistics, office and public social infrastructure added further complexity, often requiring candidates with between five and fifteen years of specific commercial real estate experience.

In Story
The relationship began in 2018 with a focus on regional growth. As Montano opened its Frankfurt office in 2020, the brief was particularly exacting: find candidates who mirrored the high performing profile of the firm’s existing talent, bringing the same drive and ownership mentality to a new market. The Berlin mandate followed a similar logic, with an emphasis on finding people who carried that same DNA but brought additional seniority to the role.

As the business grew in complexity, so did the scope of the partnership. The launch of a significant joint venture with The Carlyle Group in the logistics sector in 2021 and 2022 brought a new set of requirements.

Macdonald & Company worked closely with leadership to identify hands-on managers capable of overseeing a growing portfolio in the €300 million to €500 million range, benchmarking external candidates carefully against internal standards to ensure the standard of hire remained high.

The partnership has since extended to the most senior levels of the organisation, including the placement of a Head of Fund Management to lead institutional growth and a Head of Asset Management tasked with building a leaner, digitally supported platform across the full real estate lifecycle.

The recruitment relationship between Macdonald & Company and Montano Real Estate has evolved considerably since it began. What started as a series of regional briefs has grown into a long standing partnership that spans the organisation, from analyst level through to the senior leadership team.

For a business that holds its culture to an exceptionally high standard, having a recruitment partner who understands both the technical requirements and the less tangible qualities that define a Montano hire has been a consistent advantage.

To find out more about how we approach executive search, visit our Executive Search page.