CHICAGO—GE Capital Real Estate has just appointed Kristina Heuberger to the position of Midwest regional director. The veteran first joined GE CRE, a Connecticut-based unit of General Electric Co., in 2001. Based in Chicago, she will run the company's lending efforts in major markets such as Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Columbus.

Heuberger takes over just as GE Capital has decided to ramp up their lending efforts throughout North America. According to Alec Burger, North America president of GE Capital, the firm will make about $7 billion in North American real estate loans, an increase of about 40% from last year. “Liquidity has come back into the commercial real estate space with a vengeance,” Burger recently told Bloomberg News. “That's both on the equity and the debt side. We're getting back to healthy, normalized amounts of deal flow.”

Since joining GE, Heuberger has ascended the ranks, holding positions responsible for niche sectors like hotels, manufactured home communities and tax-exempt bonds. She moved to the company's equity business in 2009 and led asset management for the Midwest. Most recently, she oversaw asset management strategy for their wholly-owned equity platform for the US, a $4 billion portfolio with 25-million-square-feet of commercial space.