Kern welcomes Herman Kok as its New Director

Following the rebranding of NRW into Kern (Dutch for Core), Herman Kok will support the retail-led mixed-use strategy, rolled out by the company in 2021. Among other activities, he will be responsible to make connections with and between different sectors, such as retail, catering, leisure, living, working, health and education, but also governments and knowledge institutions. 

Marrit Laning, Chair of the Kern Board, says: “For Herman, there is the wonderful task to continue to build the strategy around vital center areas of cities and neighborhoods. Also, growing our association, together with our loyal and active members, our program manager Hans van Scheerdijk, and the board. With his knowledge, network and personality, we as board have confidence in this and we wish him success in his new role”.

Herman Kok comments: “The need for central areas as meeting places remains unabated, whether these are city centers, neighborhood community centers, or urban fringe locations. There is an enormous task for real estate parties and governments to facilitate this properly. I look forward to working with the members, the team, and the board of Kern”.

Herman Kok has 25 years of experience in the real estate sector. Most recent, he worked as Head of Research and Analytics for Ellandi with a focus on community center and high-street transformation. Before, he was Head of Research at MARK (formerly Meyer Bergman) since 2017, with a focus on retail, leisure and mixed-use projects in core cities throughout Western Europe, as well as last mile logistics. Before that, Herman worked for many years at Multi Corporation and Multi Development in various research roles with a focus on international markets, the last few years as Head of Research.

Kok holds a master’s degree in Economic Geography (State University Groningen) and received his PhD in Social Human Geography from Utrecht University. He completed a postgraduate MRE Master Real Estate degree at UAMS University Antwerp Management School. He is member of various organizations such as RICS, ULI, ICSC, ECSP.