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

Chief Executive Officer
Here East

Gavin Poole is the CEO of Here East, a dedicated campus for the technology and creative sectors, which is now home to over 6,500 people. Built out of a bid to transform the former international press and broadcast centre used during the 2012 London Olympic games, the vision for the campus has positioned it as one of the most successful Olympic re-developments.

Gavin is also a Director of Plexal, the innovation centre at Here East, which is focused on utilising technology to deliver national security and prosperity. He also sits on the Tech London Advocates and Global Tech Advocates advisory board for Russ Shaw CBE.

Before starting Here East, Gavin served for over twenty years in the Royal Air Force, starting as an aircraft engineering apprentice and retiring as a Wing Commander. Gavin ran the Centre for Social Justice, a think tank in Westminster. He is also a governor of the University of East London.

Rosanna Lawes

Executive Director of Development
London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC)

Rosanna Lawes is responsible for the delivery of development programmes on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, one of the largest and high-profile urban regeneration projects in the world. Rosanna’s key focus is delivering new neighbourhoods on the Park as well as driving forward flagship projects for London such as East Bank, the UK’s newest cultural quarter which will attract an additional 1.5m visitors to the Park while generating £1.5bn of economic benefit to the capital and the UK. Overall, Rosanna oversees the development mix of residential, commercial and social infrastructure which equates to a gross development value of £3.3bn.

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.