Jennet Siebrits

Head of UK Research
CBRE

Jennet is an Executive Director at CBRE. She is an economist with over twenty years experience. Jen joined CBRE 18 years ago to set up the residential research
team. She is currently head of UK research, with a focus is on the big issues in the real estate world; identifying trends, analysing the market, and providing clients
with unrivalled insight and ideas. Jen regularly produces bespoke reports for clients that help inform their strategic decision making process.

In addition, she produces a wide ranging programme of thought leadership looking at issues such as placemaking, premium pricing and the impact of regeneration. Jen spends a significant amount of time presenting to client (developer and buyers) to keep them up to date with market developments.

Fiona Fletcher-Smith

Chief Executive
L&Q

Fiona was appointed as L&Q’s Chief Executive in September 2020. A chartered surveyor, with almost 30 years of experience in the housing sector, Fiona has worked in a variety of voluntary and public sector roles including advising homeless people in Dublin, housing management, development and regeneration, strategy and policy development.

Fiona was previously L&Q’s Director of Development and Sales, spearheading a £5.1 billion development programme. Whilst in this role, Fiona led our development and strategic land programmes, including landmark projects such as the 10,800-home Barking Riverside development. She also oversaw the group’s expansion beyond the South East and delivered change programmes to improve both the efficiency and diversity of our Development and Sales function.

Prior to joining L&Q, Fiona was Executive Director for Development, Enterprise and Environment at the Greater London Authority (GLA). As part of their senior management team, Fiona was responsible for overseeing the delivery and implementation of key strategies such as the London Plan and overseeing the operation of the Mayor’s powers in relation to significant planning applications in the capital.

Fiona is the current chair of trustees at the Centre for London, helping the capital’s think tank to meet their charitable objectives.

Ben Denton

Managing Director
L&G Affordable Homes

Ben Denton is Managing Director of L&G Affordable Homes. L&G Affordable Homes’ set up in 2018 with an ambitious business plan to develop 3,000 affordable homes pa by 2022 alongside building a best in class customer services experience. L&G are investing patient, long-term capital in order to grow the capacity of the affordable housing sector and in so doing, deliver societally important outcomes. L&G Affordable Homes sits alongside L&G’s other housing businesses including BTR, Modular, Cala and Inspired Villages Group. Prior to L&G, Ben held a number of positions in the public and private sectors, delivering residential led development and regeneration.

Clare Miller

Group Chief Executive
Clarion Housing

Clare has been our Group Chief Executive since 2018. She is a chartered accountant with almost 30 years’ experience in the housing sector. Clare joined the Housing Corporation in 1992 as a financial regulator. Over the next 18 years progressed to become its Director of Regulation.

She then became an Executive Director at the Tenant Services Authority, with responsibility for housing association regulation. In 2010 Clare joined Affinity Sutton as Group Director of Governance and Compliance. She took up the same role at Clarion in 2016, before taking on her current role two years later.

Ric Blakeway

Housing Ombudsman

Richard was appointed as Housing Ombudsman from 1 September 2019. He has extensive experience in the housing sector, with previous roles including Deputy Mayor of London for Housing, chair of the Homes for London board and a non-executive director of Homes England.

During his eight years at the Greater London Authority, Richard was responsible for housing investment and land generation programmes. He also led the creation of the first team at City Hall to address rough sleeping, commissioning around £10 million of services each year, as well as the first Social Impact Bond on homelessness.

Richard is a former board member of the Chartered Institute of Housing and has been an election observer in Somaliland and Ukraine. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and sits on the Administrative Justice Council.

Richard also chairs the Ombudsman Association and is a board member of the British Library.

Cllr Promise Knight

Cabinet Member for Housing, Homelessness and Renters Security
Brent Council

Cllr Promise Knight is Cabinet Lead Member for Housing, Homelessness and Renters’ Security at Brent Council where she has strategic oversight over a range of housing services, including Brent’s private housing strategy and renters’ support. Promise has worked for a number of Parliamentarians in both Houses of Parliament, and at Citizens UK as a Community Organiser responsible for civic engagement.

David Lunts

Chief Executive Officer
Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation

David Lunts was appointed as the permanent Chief Executive Officer of Old Oak and Park Royal Development in January 2021.

He had previously been the interim Chief Executive Officer for OPDC since February 2019, and combined his work on London’s largest Opportunity Area with his duties as Executive Director of Housing and Land for the Greater London Authority.

Between 2009-2012 David led as the Executive Director for London at the Homes and Communities Agency. His earlier career included three years at the GLA as Executive Director of Policy and Partnerships under Ken Livingstone, a leading role in housing and regeneration with Manchester City Council during the 1980s and early 90s and a three-year spell as director of Urban Policy for John Prescott at the former Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Ailish Christian-West

Chief Operating Officer
Get Living

Ailish is responsible for managing Get Living’s existing £2 billion build-to-rent neighbourhood portfolio and current development pipeline of circa 6,000 homes development, working with investors and development partners to drive investment performance and grow the Get Living UK portfolio to our target of 15,000 homes. She also leads Get Livings ESG agenda and supports industry collaboration on a broad range of issues, advocating for a sustainable real estate sector.

Ailish has more than 20 years’ experience in UK real estate. Prior to Get Living, Ailish enjoyed 12 years at Landsec, laterally as an executive committee member responsible for portfolio management and portfolio operations. At Landsec she led key strategic initiatives including pivoting London suburban retail assets to mixed use, selling out of secondary shopping centres and creating significant value through building a retail outlet portfolio. She also spent 10 years in fund management, running core plus and opportunistic funds including at La Salle Investment Management.

Tom Copley

Deputy Mayor for Housing
GLA

Tom has been on the London Assembly as a London-wide List member since May 2012, and was re-elected in 2016. He served as Chair of the Assembly’s housing committee and as Labour Group housing spokesperson up until 2020.

In February 2020 it was announced that Sadiq Khan would appoint Tom as Deputy Mayor for Housing.

On the Assembly he has raised concerns about the lack of housing supply across all tenures, rents and conditions in the private rented sector and the increase in rough sleeping. As someone with a long-standing love for the arts, Tom has also been an advocate for London’s small theatres. His Centre Stage report led to the launch of the London Theatres Small Grants Scheme in August 2015.

Prior to his election to the Assembly, Tom worked for Hope not hate - an anti-fascist, anti-racist charity that works with communities to fight racism and hatred.

Kate Ives

Strategic Growth Director
Countryside Partnerships

Kate is a geographer, town planner, housing practitioner, and social impact champion. Her work centres around housing delivery but a significant part of that is wider regeneration on major city projects such as Beam Park in Barking and Clapham Park in Lambeth. Kate’s centre of gravity is always directed towards supporting and helping others at a community level, and she does that through active management of the social value impact teams that she runs. Her role sees her working with the public sector to deliver long term regeneration on public land, working in partnership with local Councils, housing associations and local community groups. She also represents Countryside on JV project boards and supports good governance practice.

Claire Dutch

Practice Group Head, UK, Real Estate
Ashurst

Claire has been described in the legal directories as a “leader in the field of planning”. She specialises on all aspects of contentious and non-contentious planning law. She helps clients on strategy and policy at the inception of a development scheme, planning applications, environmental impact assessment, planning agreements, the community infrastructure levy and appeals and judicial review.

Claire has advised the public and private sector on some of the country’s most notable and iconic development and infrastructure projects. She has featured in The Lawyer’s “Hot 100” and numerous polls of influential people in the planning industry. She is the Vice Chair of the British Property Federation’s planning committee and a member of the Oxford Joint Planning Law Conference Committee.

Jonathan Seal

Chief Executive Officer
Regal London

Jonathan Seal started his career as a trainee solicitor with Lovell White Durrant in 1997, qualifiying into the corporate finance department specialising in M&A and private equity. He subsequently moved away from the law into investment banking and then went on to spend 20+ years in private equity, latterly as a partner at Nova Capital, managing their European secondary business.

Jonathan joined Regal London in 2016 as a Non-Executive Director to spearhead its strategic growth plans and subsequently moved into a full time role, now as Chief Executive Officer. Jonathan is also a Non Executive Director of Modulous, an early stage proptech company.

Angela Brennan

Project Lead, Elephant Park
Lendlease

Angela is Project Lead for Elephant Park, Lendlease’s £2.5 billion regeneration project it is delivering in partnership with Southwark Council. Elephant Park is one of the most significant urban regeneration projects in Europe and, once complete, it will include over 3,000 homes, 50 new retail and leisure units and 50,000 square feet of workspaces, all centred around a new two-acre park.

Angela has been part of the Elephant Park project for four years, previously holding the roles of development director and senior development manager. During her 22 years at Lendlease, she has worked across Australia and the UK on range of projects including IQL Stratford, Overgate Shopping Centre in Dundee and Bluewater, and corporate roles within HR, marketing, and operations.

Paul King

Managing Director Sustainability and Social Impact
Lendlease

Paul joined Lendlease in February 2015, bringing more than a decade worth of experience of sustainability in the built environment. Paul is responsible shaping the European sustainability strategy and its implementation.

Previously he held the prominent role of CEO at the UK Green Building Council. Paul has also enjoyed senior positions at WWF-UK and was a co-founder of One Planet Living. Paul is Chairman of the Zero Carbon Hub and is a member of the Zero Carbon Homes 2016 Task Force. He is a member of the Green Construction Board and Chair of its Buildings Working Group.

Lucille Watkins-Brazier

Head of Social Impact
Lendlease Europe

Lucille joined Lendlease in 2019 and brings a wealth of expertise to the role having previously worked in operational & strategic positions within both the Construction and Development areas of the business.

Lucille’s focus now is on leading the delivery of Lendlease’s Social Impact programme in Europe and supporting the delivery of Lendlease’s commitment to the creation of $250m AUD of Social value by 2025.

Lucille’s career has spanned the public, private and third sectors, having held a range of roles including in Social and Economic Development, Responsible Business, Human Resources, Mediation and Youth Engagement Services.

Laura Jockers

Head of ESG
M&G Real Estate

M&G has recently appointed Laura Jockers as its new Global Head of ESG for Real Estate . Laura will take responsibility for overseeing and delivering sustainability strategies across the firm’s global Real Estate funds. Working collaboratively across teams and regions, she will ensure the funds respond to our investors’ growing ESG requirements and that M&G continues to be at the forefront of sustainability innovation and thinking on a range of topics, including net zero carbon and social impact.

Laura joins from The Howard de Walden Estate which encompasses 92 acres of London’s West End and includes Marylebone High Street – one of London’s prime shopping and leisure locations – and also the world-famous Harley Street Medical Area. As Head of Sustainability, she was responsible for developing the business’s sustainability strategy across its business operations and £4.6bn property assets in London’s Marylebone.

Prior to that, Laura worked as an Associate Director in JLL’s Upstream Sustainability Services Team and as a Global Sustainability and Research Consultant for various departments across JLL’s global business. She has over 15 years’ experience in sustainable real estate and has advised many companies on their sustainable Real Estate strategies including Lendlease, Sonae Sierra, Barclays Bank and AstaZeneca.

Thomas Bryans

Director & Co-Founder
IF_DO

Thomas is a big-picture thinker and masterplanner by nature. He has a wide-angle view on every element of our work and sees connections that might not be immediately obvious. He’s also a great communicator – both in person and on the page – and his TEDx Talk on ‘Architecture’s Ripple Effect’ is the perfect introduction to how we think and work.

This interest in the wider repercussions of architecture goes hand in hand with an interest in sustainability and creating healthy environments. He’s drawn to working on projects where IF_DO can make a positive and far-reaching impact. He was the driving force in making our work at St Teresa’s School so rewarding, both for us and for the school, by involving the students in reshaping their school for the better, and inspiring them with what architecture can do.

Ian McDermott

Chief Executive Officer
Peabody

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Colin Wilson

Head of Regeneration Old Kent Road
London Borough of Southwark

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