ULI Chicago is pleased to announce our 2021-2022 Jeffrey Kahan Fellows – Oliver Turner, Vice President, Acquisitions, WHI Real Estate Partners, and Smitha Vasan, Architect, SmithGroup.

Created in memory of long-time ULI member, Jeffrey Kahan, the Kahan Fellowship provides ULI Chicago Young Leaders with a one-year Full membership and participation on the IOPC-Blue National Product Council at the upcoming ULI Fall and Spring Meetings. Take a minute to learn about our 2021-2022 Fellows:

Oliver Turner is a Vice President in the Acquisitions team at WHI Real Estate Partners where he is responsible for sourcing, structuring, executing and actively asset managing the investment firm’s real estate projects, across the USA. Before immigrating to Chicago, he worked in London for Intermediate Capital Group plc, and Barclays CIB, where he primarily capitalized large-scale, mixed-use, urban regeneration projects in the UK. Oliver holds a Masters in Finance & Economics from the University of Cambridge and a Bachelors in Economics from the University of Birmingham. He is a CFA Charterholder, a member of the Cambridge University Land Society, and a member of the Urban Land Institute.

An architect, Smitha C. Vasan is an advocate for social justice through the lens and responsibility of design excellence.  After learning architecture alongside and through urban design, she sees every design opportunity as a chance to make strategic, contextual understanding into just built-world solutions.  She is intrigued by the City of Chicago as a place for opportune and experiential learning in spreading equity through design.  Smitha has experience in commercial and institutional architecture at micro and macro scales. She resides in Bronzeville and is employed at SmithGroup

The Kahan Fellowship honors Jeffrey Kahan, a principal and director of the Investment Services group of Colliers International in Chicago, who passed away in June 2012. As an active member of ULI and a member of the IOPC – Blue Flight, Kahan deeply believed in the value of the relationships formed and information shared through ULI. He was a passionate Chicagoan and wanted his life’s work to make a positive impact on the City.