Dominic Grace
Conference Chair
Dominic was at Savills for 37 years and until mid-2021 headed its very successful London Residential Development Department, which comprised c.140 professionals, providing consultancy and sales capability on land and residential product, covering both private and affordable accommodation for private and public sector clients. He also managed Savills UK wide New Homes business for 10 years and sat on Savills UK Boards for over 20 years.
Dominic now has his own advisory business to bring to bear his extensive knowledge of the processes involved in the residential development and investment sector. He is passionate about innovation, good design and architecture, with contacts with many residential/commercial developers, landowners, PropTech players and other consultants.
Geeta Nanda
Geeta Nanda, Chief Executive, Metropolitan Thames Valley & Chair, G15
Geeta is Chief Executive of MTVH (Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing) a leading national provider of affordable homes to rent and buy. Across a career of nearly 30 years, she has held a variety of leadership roles in the housing sector. Geeta was Chief Executive of Thames Valley Housing for nine years, and then Chief Executive of Metropolitan from October 2017, before the two organisations merged. She established the highly successful market rent subsidiary, Fizzy Living, in 2012.
Geeta has served on the boards of a number of other housing organisations and is Chair of the G15 group of London’s largest housing associations, which collectively provides home to one in ten Londoners and builds a quarter of the capital’s new homes. Geeta is a Board member of the National Housing Federation, a non-Executive member of PRS REIT plc, the UK’s first quoted real estate investment trust to focus on high-quality new-build family homes for the private rental market, and an Ambassador for the charity World Child Cancer.
In 2013, Geeta was awarded an OBE for achievements in social housing, and in 2021 received the ‘Outstanding Individual’ award at the EG Awards in recognition of her achievements and position as a ‘role model’ within the sector.
John Mulryan
Group Managing Director, Ballymore
John Mulryan joined Ballymore in 2005 and has been a leading figure within the business since 2010 as UK Managing Director and 2016 as Group Managing Director.
He has played a central role in creating thousands of much-needed new homes across London with some of the City’s most admired developments including London City Island, Wardian, Royal Wharf, The Brentford Project and Embassy Gardens in Nine Elms.
John has also led Ballymore in creating over 1.5 million sq ft of office space since 2016 in London, Birmingham and Dublin with new headquarters being provided for major corporates and institutions including the Central Bank of Ireland, BT, Penguin Random House, HS2 and the National Treasury Management Agency.
He has also been instrumental in establishing Ballymore as a dedicated placemaker and, under his direction in London, the company is bringing culture to its communities, including constructing the new headquarters for English National Ballet on London City Island, which opened in 2019. Ballymore also worked alongside the US government to move its embassy from Grosvenor Square to Embassy Gardens which was a critical milestone in initiating the regeneration of Nine Elms.
Simon Murphy
Chief Executive Officer, Battersea Power Station Development Company
Simon Murphy is the Chief Executive Officer of Battersea Power Station Development Company (BPSDC), leading the team managing the redevelopment of Battersea Power Station and its surrounding 42-acre site, on behalf of a consortium of Malaysian shareholders.
Simon is responsible for the overall corporate direction and strategy of the project with one of his key priorities being to successfully restore the Power Station for generations to come and enjoy.
He joined BPSDC in 2011 as the company’s Chief Financial Officer and also became Deputy CEO in 2015. Prior to commencing corporate side work, he spent a large part of his career as an investment banker, principally with HSBC, where he was a Managing Director. He was responsible for strategic advisory, mergers and acquisitions and equity and debt capital markets for corporate clients including those within the property sector. He remains a non-executive director of a number of public and private companies. Simon is a Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and has a BSc in Economics.
Claire Dutch
Partner, Joint Head of Planning & Environment, Ashurst
Claire Dutch is a partner and Head of UK Real Estate at international law firm Ashurst LLP. She is also Co-Head of the firm's Planning and Environment group.
Claire has been described in the legal directories as “amongst the top planning lawyers in the country” and an "extraordinary talent". For over 20 years, she has advised the public and private sector on some of the country’s most notable and iconic development and infrastructure projects for The Crown Estate, Ballymore, British Land, Berkeley, Lendlease amongst others.:
Claire is the Chair of the British Property Federation’s Planning Committee. In 2020, she was the only lawyer to give evidence as a planning expert to DLUCH's parliamentary select committee on planning reform.
Claire was awarded "Planning Lawyer of the Year 2022" by Best Lawyers for her work in planning in London.
Richard Donnell
Research & Insight Director, Zoopla
Richard is a leading property industry figure best known for delivering insight and strategic advice on the residential and mortgage markets. He also has a deep understanding of how technology and data can unlock insight and business value across the housing and mortgage lifecycle.
Richard runs Zoopla’s research function leveraging Zoopla’s unique data assets and consumer insights to provide market leading insight for customers, industry and Government. He is also executive lead for the property division’s data strategy in addition to Zoopla’s ESG strategy.
Richard started his career at Savills in 1994, moving to data and analytics business Hometrack in 2006 which was acquired by ZPG Plc in 2017. ZPG Plc was acquired by global private equity investor SilverLake in 2018. Zoopla is the property division of ZPG Ltd which delivers market leading property marketing services and software solutions for businesses and consumers across the property lifecycle.
Richard Margree
CEO, Knight Dragon
Richard has worked in the real estate industry throughout his career. After training in law, he became a partner at Clifford Chance in 2001 and then joined a real estate fund. Richard met Sammy Lee in late 2011. Together, they have spearheaded Knight Dragon’s initial investment in the developer vehicle for Greenwich Peninsula – and, crucially, the ambitious vision for the project, London’s largest regeneration.
Katy Warrick
Director, Head of London Residential Research, Savills
Katy leads the Savills London residential development research team of three researchers, advising on regeneration sites in outer London boroughs through to luxury developments in prime central London.
Katy joined the Savills residential research team in 2011 specialising in the new build market, in particular the supply pipeline and opportunities. In 2014 she spent three months on secondment in Singapore, and travelling the region, to better understand overseas buyer demand for London property.
Katy presents market trends to a wide range of global developers, property companies, housing associations, investors and lenders, as well as industry conferences. She regularly presents to overseas developers, banks, and high net worths across the globe - in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Bangkok, Shanghai and Beijing.
Chloe Beckett
Strategy Director, Hunter Design
Chloe leads the strategy team at Hunter, a creative place-branding agency. With a background in language-driven behaviour change, Chloe is a research and insights specialist, and works heavily in the fields of understanding consumer mindsets and customer home-buying journeys. In 2022, Chloe led Hunter’s seminal research project, Making Sense of Place. This global exploration into the essence of great placemaking saw her travel around the world, conducting an ethnographic study into how different cultures, societies and communities invite ‘place’ into their lives.
Rory Bergin
Partner - Sustainable Futures, HTA
Charlie Weatherill
Capital Markets Director, Telford Homes, A Trammell Crow Company Developer
As Capital Markets Director, Charlie is responsible for all capital markets relationships and focuses on securing funding partners for a growing pipeline of BtR developments. Charlie plays a critical role in establishing and nurturing relationships with funding partners who are keen to invest alongside Telford Homes in purpose-designed and built rental homes. Charlie joined from Savills, where he was a founding director of the Operational Capital Markets business. Charlie has been an influential contributor to the rapid evolution of the UK’s BtR sector and has personally advised on approximately £4 billion of funding transactions in the sector to date.
Sophie Hine
Head of Operations and Customer BTR, John Lewis Partnership
Sophie brings 15 years experience in the John Lewis Partnership, having operationally led 8 different John Lewis branches, headed up a £900m digital trading team and developed market leading customer experience propositions worth £50m including digitalising core services during the COVID pandemic.
Sophie is leading operations and customer in the newly created JLP BTR business. Responsible for building and leading all customer workstreams including Brand Development, Marketing, Digital, Customer Experience and Propositional Design. Leading the development and delivery of a brand new Operating Company including operational platform development, onsite operations and facilities.
Danielle Bayless
Chief Operating Officer, Quintain Living
Danielle joined Quintain as Quintain Living's COO in 2020, bringing over 30 years of U.S. multifamily experience with her. Prior to Quintain, Danielle served as Vice President of Operations at Essex Property Trust, an S&P 500 company, providing strategic leadership for all aspects of team and asset performance including budgeting and lease up execution for a portfolio of 23,000 homes. She has additionally held board seats on the Housing Industry Foundation (HIF) as well as multiple regional chapters of the California Apartment Association (CAA).
David Reid
Managing Director - Suburban Build to Rent, Legal & General
David is Managing Director of the Legal & General Suburban Build to Rent business, (SBTR) responsible for helping to create and deliver the SBTR strategy, originate and structure partnerships and for building and managing the team.
He has extensive residential real estate investment, development and management experience and originally joined Legal & General Capital as Senior Investment Manager within the Principal Investing/Housing team, managing Legal & General Capital’s nationwide investments into the urban Build to Rent sector within Legal & General Investment Management business.
Prior to the role, he was a Director at Rowan Asset Management and a Board Director of Taylor Wimpey Cavendish Holdings, a joint venture regional housebuilding division. He holds an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, MSc from Cass Business School, MA from the University of Edinburgh and is a Member of the RICS.
Andrew Teacher
Managing Director , Montfort Real Estate (previously Blackstock Consulting)
Andrew is a trusted advisor to senior figures across real estate and has worked in the sector for over 18 years. He set up Blackstock in 2012 and sold it to Montfort in April 2022 becoming Managing Director for Real Estate & ESG and remaining a shareholder.
Andrew advises the boards of major real estate and investment companies around reputation, business strategy, investor relations and policy, and has gained a reputation for being well connected across the political spectrum.
Andrew was previously the spokesman for the British Property Federation and prior to Blackstock worked for BAA at Heathrow, where he was responsible for shifting the government’s position on the Third Runway. He joined the ULI’s executive committee in 2017 and has authored numerous reports helping establish new sectors such as build-to-rent and life sciences. Since 2017, Andrew has hosted PropCast, a weekly podcast in collaboration with Property Week and he is a regular commentator across the BBC and other broadcasters.
In parallel, Andrew has helped establish and exit start-ups, including Spacehive, the world’s first civic crowdfunding platform, and Musicmetric, an analytics company sold to Apple in 2015.