Cllr Ian Ward

Leader
Birmingham City Council

Ashley Kensington

Managing Director
St Joseph, Berkeley Group Plc

Ashley has 20 years’ experience within in the development sector specialising in property investment, acquisition and obtaining planning consents. For the last 15 years she has worked at the Berkeley Group with posts held in St James, Berkeley Commercial and more recently in St William where she assisted in setting up the joint venture with National Grid.

In August 2018, Ashley moved to St Joseph to assist the Berkeley Group’s expansion into the West Midlands with responsibility for land, planning and asset management.

James Craig

Co-Founder
Oval Real Estate

James has spent more than 20 years working in commercial real estate. Following time with Weatherall Green and Smith (now BNP Paribas), Bellhammer, Anglesea Capital and Kenmore, James set up Oval with Nick in 2013 and oversees deal origination and asset management.

Rebecca Taylor

Managing Director of BTR
Long Harbour

Rebecca joined Long Harbour in 2015 and has deployed over £450m for the Multifamily programme in this period. Having raised a further £500mn of equity in 2019, Rebecca is responsible for the entire delivery cycle from strategy and deal origination through to structuring, delivery and asset management phase.

Prior to joining Long Harbour, Rebecca spent 8 years at Laing O’Rourke working in their property and PFI investment team. Here she worked on their offsite delivery solution, securing the planning and delivery of 1.3mn sqft of mixed-use space and over 4,000 residential units in Ireland, UAE and UK.