Alison Rehill-Erguven has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Arabian Centres Company, the largest owner and operator of contemporary lifestyle shopping centres in Saudi Arabia, effective from August 21, 2022. The board of directors approved the appointment on June 16, 2022, according to a filing with the Saudi stock exchange.
Rehill-Erguven succeeds Faisal Al Jedaie, whose resignation took effect on January 31, 2022. Mohamad Mourad, the company's Managing Director, served as Acting CEO until Rehill-Erguven assumed the role. Mourad commented that Rehill-Erguven "offers an impressive calibre of expertise working in some of the biggest, fastest growing markets in the world with expertise in the holistic shopping lifecycle." Rehill-Erguven said upon her appointment: "I am delighted to join Arabian Centres in Saudi Arabia. I am driven by the challenge of quickly understanding and adapting to new and emerging markets and the burgeoning opportunity in the Kingdom is the talk of our industry across the globe."
Rehill-Erguven brings over two decades of experience in shopping mall and real estate operations across prominent emerging markets in Asia, Europe and Latin America, as well as more than a decade of experience in the United States market. She joins from Brookfield Properties in Shanghai, where she served as head of commercial real estate responsible for all retail assets including shopping malls, offices and mixed-use developments. Prior to joining Brookfield, Rehill-Erguven served as Chief Executive Officer of Pradera Retail Asia, a Shanghai-based joint venture that Brookfield acquired in 2021. Before that, she held the position of Managing Director at Pradera Limited, a London-based retail property investment and asset management firm with operations across the United Kingdom, Europe and Turkey. She spent nearly a decade as International Vice President of Asset Management at General Growth Properties in Chicago, where she oversaw approximately USD 400 million worth of assets across 15 shopping centres in Brazil and Turkey, and also served as Board Director at Simon Property Group. Rehill-Erguven holds a Bachelor of Science in International Trade from the Fashion Institute of Technology at the State University of New York and earned a Master of Science in Organizational Leadership from Colorado State University.
Arabian Centres Company, headquartered in Riyadh, owns, develops and operates 21 shopping centres across 11 Saudi cities, comprising 4,300 stores with a total gross leasable area of 1.2 million square meters. The company is listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange, having completed its initial public offering in 2019 that raised capital by selling 20 percent of the company. The portfolio includes flagship properties such as Mall of Arabia and Mall of Dhahran and features premium tenant brands including Zara, Sephora, Nike and Marks & Spencer. The company has expanded its entertainment and leisure offerings in recent years, pioneering premium cineplex rollouts across its portfolio and in 2021 acquiring VogaCloset, a UK-based online fashion platform serving the Middle East. Arabian Centres is currently undertaking major expansion with two new generation shopping destinations, Jawharat Al-Riyadh and Jawharat Jeddah, supported by partnerships with Riyad Capital worth USD 1.6 billion in total investment.
The appointment signals a shift toward international real estate expertise as Arabian Centres executes an ambitious growth strategy aligned with Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 economic diversification plan. Rehill-Erguven's background scaling operations across multiple continents and leading transitions during major corporate acquisitions, particularly her most recent work integrating Pradera Retail Asia into Brookfield's global platform, positions her to manage the company's aggressive expansion trajectory in one of the Middle East's largest retail markets. Her experience with high-end mixed-use lifestyle destinations and entertainment-integrated shopping centres aligns with Arabian Centres' strategic repositioning toward premium lifestyle offerings and immersive consumer experiences rather than traditional retail.
