Paul Scully MP

Minister for London

Paul Scully was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on 13 February 2020. He is responsible for Small Business, Consumers and Labour Markets and Minister for London.

Paul is a British politician serving as the Member of Parliament for Sutton and Cheam since 2015. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as its vice chairman
for the London region from 2017 to 2019. Paul was born in Rugby, Warwickshire. He moved to London after graduating and ran a number of small businesses.

Faraz Baber

Operations Director - Midlands & South East
RPS

Faraz Baber is the Operations Director for Planning at RPS Group covering London, South East, Midlands and the North of England. RPS was founded in 1970 and is a leading global professional services firm which employs c. 5,500 staff. Faraz is a dual qualified chartered town planner and chartered surveyor; he currently serves as a member of the British Property Federation’s Planning Committee and, as the former chair of the RICS Planning Policy Panel, he also advises RICS on current planning policy issues. His specific areas of planning reform interest and expertise include the evolution of Community Infrastructure Levy and more recently helping to provide technical input into the proposals for an Infrastructure Levy.

Faraz provides both strategic and technical expertise to planning projects and over the duration of his career, he has successfully worked on a wide and varied caseload of large and complex schemes across England.

Jon Neale

Head of Research - UK
JLL

As head of UK research, Jon leads a 20+ strong team and is responsible for research outputs, client support and consultancy projects across the full range of commercial and residential property sectors, from both occupier and investor/developer perspectives. He also sits on the EMEA Research Board, and has overall responsibility for leading research advisory services across Europe. Jon has almost fifteen years of experience, working in both the public and private sectors. Prior to joining JLL, he was Head of Market Intelligence at the UK Government’s Homes and Communities Agency, in which he advised on regeneration, the housing market and relevant areas of policy.

Cath Webster

Executive Director for Strategy and Investment
Quintain

Catherine is Executive Director for Strategy and Investment at Quintain leading on business strategy, financing and investment initiatives for not only Quintain’s existing site at Wembley Park but also new sites for mixed use developments with a Build to Rent focus.

Working closely with all the groups in the company, Catherine’s role is to drive new business initiatives and ensure successful resourcing, structuring and delivery. Transactions range from investing in new sites, place-making initiatives, and repositioning of assets to divesting of non-core assets. She is responsible for the equity and debt relationships, ensuring funding is available when needed, and is the lead relationship manager with external finance sources. For new business, Catherine takes the lead in viability, structuring and funding to ensure the team is successful in not only the bidding phase but also the eventual development and completion of the project.

Catherine has 25 years of real estate investment and finance experience and has held several senior roles as an investor or a lender in a wide array of companies including private equity, fund management and investment banking at Hudson Advisors (Lone Star Funds), TIAA & Lehman Brothers Global Real Estate. Her experience is pan-European, across residential and commercial sectors and as an owner, JV partner, fund investor, mezzanine and senior lender.

She holds a Bsc in Land Management from Reading University, an MBA from INSEAD and is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Anne Breen

Head of Investment Strategy (Real Estate)
Aberdeen Standard Investments

Anne’s role is to lead the investment approach, process and strategy for the real estate business. This includes the creation of a Global Houseview to support real estate investment allocations relevant to all investor outcomes, as well as the development of the risk based tools and strategic insights to deliver a strong long term risk adjusted track record for clients. Anne chairs the global committees across the Real Estate business assessing fund strategic plans for investment, distributions and asset management.

Anne also holds a board position in the Association of Real Estate Funds (AREF) board and also sits on SLA’s Global Inclusion Committee.

Erin Clarke

Relationship Director, Structured Property Finance
Investec

Erin joined Investec’s Real Estate team in 2012 as Legal Counsel, where she supported the team until 2016. Erin then moved to her current role, in which she is responsible for managing a large portfolio of clients, who largely focus on development and value-add activities. Her own focus is on actively working with clients, and sourcing lending opportunities largely for development in residential properties for sale and rent, purpose-built student accommodation and the industrial and logistics property sectors.

Erin qualified as a solicitor in 2007 while working at Dentons in Sydney, Australia. In 2010, having acted on a wide range of real estate and corporate finance transactions for banks, corporate and private clients, she moved to London and took up an Associate role with Charles Russell Speechlys.

Lee Coward

Vice President, Investments, Europe
Oxford Properties

Lee is a senior member of Oxford’s European Investment Team, working on the origination and execution of European equity and credit investments. Lee’s primary focus is on UK opportunities, most recently in the multi-family and single-family residential sector including Oxford’s investment in Get Living.
Lee joined Oxford in 2013, originally in the corporate finance team, and previously led the sourcing of debt financing for all European investments as well as the formation of Oxford’s European credit investment strategy.

Lee attended the University of Warwick and is a also qualified Chartered Accountant.

Melanie Leech CBE

Chief Executive
BPF

Melanie joined the British Property Federation as Chief Executive in January 2015, following nine years as Director General of the Food and Drink Federation.

Melanie began her working life as a Police Constable in the Metropolitan Police Service. She joined the civil service (HM Customs) in 1988 and subsequently held senior roles in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Office of the Rail Regulator and the Cabinet Office. Her role is to champion UK real estate and to promote a long-term, sustainable partnership between governments and the sector to deliver a high quality built environment, and to create wealth.

Melanie is a Fellow of the RSA and a member of the Battersea. In 2015 she was awarded a CBE for services to the food and drink industry.

Mark Davy

Founder & CEO
Futurecity

Mark Davy is Founder and CEO of Futurecity, Europe’s largest public art agency creating cultural and public art strategies for clients across the public and private sectors. Futurecity has produced over 125 cultural strategies, brokered over 20 cultural partnerships, and worked on over 200 artist commissions for clients across four continents. In London, Futurecity has delivered the largest number of public art works in the capital’s history.

Mark studied Fine Art at Canterbury College of Art 1978 -1981, followed by a 2-year ‘artist in residence’ appointment at the Architectural Association in London in 1983-85.

Futurecity Projects include placemaking strategies for New Covent Garden Market, Wood Wharf, Barking Riverside and the former power station Battersea Power Station as part of the new Nine Elms on the Southbank district in London / A new cultural district for Greenwich Peninsula (Knight Dragon) in London / A new cultural district for Wembley Park (Quintain Living) London and a new cultural district for East Village (the former 2012 Olympics Athletes Village in Stratford, London) / 2020 saw the launch of an ambitious cultural strategy for London’s West End for the Heart of London Business Investment District, followed by the launch of the Arts Quarter a new cultural neighbourhood near the National Gallery. He has also worked closely with residential developers including 15 London developments with the Berkeley Group and numerous sites for Ballymore including Royal Wharf, Spitalfields Market and City Island where his strategic work led to a new building for the English National Ballet.

James Saunders

Chief Executive Officer
Quintain

James Saunders was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Quintain in October 2019.

James was previously Chief Operating Officer of Quintain and has been a main board director since 2017. As Chief Operating Officer, James led the place-making and estate management at Wembley Park, commercial partnerships, group marketing, IT and health and safety.

During his time at Quintain, James has led the repositioning of Wembley Park from an event destination to an exciting new neighbourhood for London. He has created the strategic direction for marketing, communications and place making that has led to dramatic reconsideration of the area, increase in footfall, improvements in press coverage and word-of -mouth, plus new partnerships including with Boxpark, Troubadour Theatres and Second Floor Studios.

As Chief Operating Officer, James also oversaw the Wembley Park estate operations team with responsibility for management of The SSE Arena, Wembley, London Designer Outlet, car parking, health and safety, service charge and retail development.

He has managed key stakeholder and commercial partner relationships with GLA, London Borough of Brent, Wembley Stadium, the FA, AEG and Realm, plus other local stakeholders. He was responsible for the renegotiation of agreements with adjacent landowners that unlocked the Wembley Park site from a development and operational perspective.

Prior to joining Quintain, James was the Chief Marketing Officer at The Cloud Networks, a consultant to Vodafone Europe and Brand Director at Coca-Cola Great Britain. He holds a Sloan Masters from London Business School, a Law Degree from Cambridge University and is a barrister-at-law.

Piers Clanford

Chairman
St George and St Joseph

Piers joined the Berkeley Group in 1996 and was appointed Managing Director of St George Plc in 2017 and Chairman of St George and St Joseph in 2020.

Piers has significant experience in the delivery of large-scale mixed-use brownfield regeneration projects across London and the South East, all of which have included complex land assembly, extensive community consultation, master planning and partnerships with local authorities, strategic authorities and third party land owners.

As an executive sponsor of the Berkeley Group climate action programme, Piers is at the forefront of Berkeley’s industry leading sustainable business strategy.

Cllr Shama Tatler

Lead Member for Regeneration, Property & Planning
Brent Council

Shama Tatler has been a Councillor for the London Borough of Brent since 2014 and a member of the Cabinet in 2016 with responsibility for Regeneration, Property and Planning, overseeing some of London’s largest regeneration schemes. As part of her role she oversees some of the largest regeneration projects in London, including the Wembley Park area and also leads on the multi-award winning estate regeneration scheme in South Kilburn. As part of her lead member role she drives economic growth in Brent, as well as leading on innovative strategies on inclusive growth and affordable workspace. Recently, Shama has led on the adoption of Brent’s Local Plan and subsequent masterplan SPDs for the Neasden Station Growth Area and Church End

Nicola Mathers

Chief Executive Officer
Future of London

Nicola is CEO of Future of London, an independent network supporting housing, planning and regeneration professionals through leadership, research and networks. She leads on strategy, business development and partnerships.

Nicola is passionate about the role of the built environment to improve lives and address inequality. At Design Council and CABE she led national programmes to support the public and private sectors to plan and deliver well designed buildings and spaces.

Nicola is a member of the Mayor’s London Green Spaces Commission and the TCPA Inclusive Planning Sounding Board.