July 21st 2022
East Village - Core Forum ‘On Location’, Tour and Summer evening Reception on the Sky Bridge!
East Village, Stratford
Park Walk
, London, East Village
E20 1JL
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Event speakers
Rick de Blaby
CEO
Get Living
Rick is CEO of Get Living plc, the UK’s leading build to rent investor, developer and operator. Get Living operates 4,000 rental homes in London and Manchester, with a further 2,300 homes launching in the next 18 months and 4,000 in the pipeline in towns and cities across the UK, including Birmingham, London and Leeds. Get Living is a long-term investor that focuses on providing high quality rental homes in large-scale neighbourhoods with a focus on sustainability, placemaking and social value.
With a demonstrated track record of regenerating urban areas, Rick has 40 years of real estate and investment experience across both residential and commercial property. Past roles have included CEO of MEPC and United House and Non-Exec Chairman of Miller Developments.
Ailish Christian-West
Chief Operating Officer
Get Living
Ailish is Chief Operating Officer at Get Living, responsible for the performance of Get Living’s circa £3bn build-to-rent neighbourhood portfolio and the development pipeline portfolio of a potential 6,500 homes. She leads Get Livings ESG agenda and supports industry collaboration on a broad range of issues. Ailish has been with Get Living since 2020 supporting a rapid growth in the business and leading on operational efficiencies and customer experience strategies.
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, creating significant portfolio value and repositioned the retail business to exit the secondary shopping centre sector ahead of a significant decline in market values. She also spent ten years in fund management, running core plus and opportunistic funds including at La Salle Investment Management.
Gavin Poole
CEO
Here East
Gavin is CEO of Here East – the 1.2 million sq ft technology and Innovation campus on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, and one of the fastest growing business clusters in the UK. Recently, Gavin has been at the forefront of developing the concept of creating London’s first digital games and esports cluster. Prior, Gavin served as an engineering officer in the UK Royal Air Force for over 20 years before leaving following tours as a Wing Commander. Upon leaving military service, he ran the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) and helped form major policy initiatives including the introduction of the Modern-Day Slavery Act within the UK. Gavin is a board member of Plexal, sits on the Advisory Board of Global Tech Advocates and is a London Technology Ambassador for London & Partners. In addition, he sits on the Advisory Board for London Tech Week.
Rosanna Lawes
Executive Director of Development
London Legacy Development Corporation
Rosanna Lawes is responsible for the delivery of development programmes on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, one of the larges and highest profile urban regeneration projects in the UK and Europe. The focus is to deliver new neighbourhoods where people choose to live and work, providing a mix of residential, commercial and social infrastructure equating to a gross development value of £3.3bn.
She is also the SRO for East Bank, the new creative and education hub with Sadler’s Wells, UAL’s London College of Fashion, University College London, BBC and the Victoria and Albert Museum. This £1.1bn project will deliver 2,500 jobs, attract 1.5m additional visitors and generate £1.2bn of economic benefit to London and the UK. Rosanna has responsibility for the design, development, commercial negotiations and agreements with the market to deliver this programme.
Jonathan Silman
Founder
Community Sport Academies
Having moved to East Village in December 2013 we set up our Football projects in the Olympic park to continue the Olympic legacy for London’s brand new neighbourhood E20. 9 years later and with over 4500 members we have been able to create a Football Club (Football Unites FC) as a stepping stone to our community football projects. Our ‘free to participate’ sessions have expanded from E20 Football Foundation to now running free community sport programmes across London.
Bek Seeley
Managing Director for Development
Lendlease
Bek Seeley is the European Managing Director for Development at Lendlease.
Bek is responsible for leading the Development Business to successfully delivering Lendlease’s c.£24bn European pipeline including major projects in London,
Manchester and Birmingham. This pipeline will deliver in excess of 25,000 homes.
Previously, she held the position of Chief Operating Officer for Development and was instrumental in winning a number of major projects for Lendlease, as well as
overseeing operations and driving overall growth of the business.
Before joining Lendlease in 2015 Bek’s career spanned the public and private sectors, having held a range of operational and commercial roles in economic
development, infrastructure, built environment and public services.
Harry Knibb
Development Director
Oxford Properties Group
Harry is a development director at Oxford Properties - the real estate arm of OMERS, one of Canada’s largest defined benefit pension plans. Located in London Harry works on large complex projects, predominantly in the residential and mixed-use space. An advocate of sustainable, healthy and productive places, Harry is a chartered town planner and academician for the Academy of Urbanism.
Professor Sadie Morgan OBE
Founding Director,
dRMM
Sadie Morgan is a founding director of Stirling Prize winning architecture practice dRMM. She lectures internationally on the work of dRMM and the importance of infrastructure which connects back to people and place. She became the youngest president of the Architectural Association in 2013, and in 2016, was appointed Professor at the University of Westminster and awarded an honorary doctorate from London South Bank University.
Sadie was named New Londoner of the Year at the New London Awards 2017 for her work championing the importance of design at the highest political level.