Development Director

ABOUT THE ROLE

As Expansion Director North of Italy you own Numa's growth in the Italian related market end to end: pipeline, relationships, deal structuring and signature. You will be based in Milan, working closely with our Expansion leadership, Founders, Underwriting, Legal, Design & Construction and Operations teams.

This is a builder's role with real autonomy. You are not executing someone else's pipeline — you decide which cities and micro-locations we push into, you build the network that gets us the off-market opportunities, and you carry the deals from first coffee to signed lease and handover. Your signature ends up on assets we will operate for the next 20 years, so the quality of your judgement compounds.

WHAT YOULL DO

• Own the North of Italy pipeline. Define and execute the expansion strategy for the north of Italy — target cities, micro-locations, asset types and deal volumes — and build a pipeline deep enough to hit ambitious annual signing targets.
• Source the deals. Originate opportunities through brokers, developers, SGRs, funds, family offices, private landlords and hotel owners. Get to the off-market conversations before the marketed process starts.
• Build the network. Become Numa's face in the Italian market. Own senior relationships with institutional investors, asset managers, developers, agents and municipal stakeholders, and represent us at the relevant industry events.
• Structure and negotiate. Lead commercial negotiations on long-term leases, management and hybrid agreements — heads of terms, rent structures, indexation, capex splits, break options, guarantees — and steer them to signature with Legal.
• Underwrite with rigour. Build and challenge the business case for each opportunity: market and comp analysis, RevPAR and ADR assumptions, GOP and rent coverage, capex and ramp-up. Know which deals to kill early and say so.
• Present the deals to the Investment Committee. Prepare and present the investment case internally, defend the assumptions, and own the follow-through on conditions.
• Assess feasibility. Work with Design & Construction on layouts, unit mixes and conversion scope. Navigate Italian planning and licensing reality — destinazione d'uso, hotel vs. locazione turistica classification, CIN/CIR requirements, regional and communal rules, condominium constraints — and flag the deal-breakers before we spend money on them.
• Manage due diligence to close. Coordinate technical, legal and commercial DD with internal teams and external advisors, and drive the process through signing, handover and opening.
• Feed the machine. Bring market intelligence, competitor movements and pricing evidence back into our underwriting standards, and support investor and management reporting on the Italian portfolio.

WHAT YOU BRING

• 8+ years in real estate transactions, hotel development, real estate investment or private equity, corporate real estate expansion or top-tier consulting — with a meaningful share of it in hospitality, serviced apartments, living or another operational asset class.
• A live Italian network. You already know the brokers, developers, SGRs and owners who matter in Milan and beyond, and they take your call.
• Real transaction track record. You have led lease or acquisition negotiations to signature yourself, not just supported them.
• Commercial and analytical depth. Strong financial modelling and quantitative skills, fluent in Excel, comfortable pressure-testing an operating model — not just an investment case.
• Fluent Italian and English. Italian at native or near-native level; English is our working language across the group.
• Entrepreneurial temperament. Self-directed, resilient in a negotiation, comfortable with ambiguity, and motivated by ownership rather than process.
• Structure under load. You run several live deals in parallel without losing the detail — and the detail in a 20-year lease is where the value sits.
• Judgement and integrity. You are as willing to walk away from a bad deal as you are to fight for a good one.
• Willingness to travel regularly across Italy and to our Berlin HQ.
• A degree in business, economics, real estate or a related field is a plus, as is proficiency in a third European language.

WHAT WE OFFER

• Ownership of a market. Italy is yours to build, with direct access to Founders and the Leadership Team and short decision paths.
• Impact you can point at. Every deal you sign becomes a real building, with real guests, that we operate for decades.
• A genuinely European platform. Colleagues, deals and career paths across 10+ countries — and a business that has grown fast and keeps growing.
• A tech-first operator. Proprietary technology and data that make our underwriting sharper and our story to owners more credible than the competition's.
• Competitive package with a performance-based component tied to what you sign, plus travel and discounted stays across our European portfolio.
• Milan base with flexible working and regular time with the wider expansion team.