Bernd Knobloch, chairman of the board of Eurohypo, was among the winners of the leadership awards presented by the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Germany on Wednesday evening at a ceremony in Frankfurt am Main.

The awards, which were presented for the second time, recognise leadership competence in the German real estate industry and were presented by the chairman of ULI Germany, Alexander Otto.

Knobloch was named leader of the year in the Real Estate Industry category, in recognition of his successful leadership work over many years. The mayor of Düsseldorf, Joachim Erwin, won the prize for leader of the year in the Town Planning/Administration category for his work in promoting the city of Düsseldorf as a real estate location.

The Young Leader prize went to Philipp Freiherr von Wilmowsky, managing director of Commerz Grundbesitz Spezialfondsgesellschaft. Bernd Falk, owner of the Institut für Gewerbezentren in Starnberg, received a special prize for promoting dialogue between industry and academia.

Commenting on the prize, Knobloch told PropertyEU, 'I'm proud for myself and the team I am leading. You can only lead if you have a good team which works for you and is dedicated to the work you are doing.'

The ULI is a global research and professional development organisation with more than 34,000 members worldwide. Its German chapter has over 250 members, including executives and decision-makers from industry, local authorities, universities and the media.'The aim of the ULI is to create a network of real estate professionals and to try together to enhance the professionalism of the real estate industry and enhance training opportunities in the industry,' Otto told PropertyEU.

He welcomes the increasing professionalism of the German real estate sector, which he says has developed a lot in the last few years. 'You see a lot more transparency and a lot more research being done and the quality of the research has increased substantially, so there's a lot more transparency and information in the market,' he said.

'At the same time professionalism in public administration has increased a lot. We see very often that mayors and city planners are interacting and exchanging their views on different developers and developments.'