Lucy Blasdale

Development Director
Homes England

Lucy Blasdale is Homes England Development Director for the Central and West Area. She currently manages a team of c70 staff and is responsible for the delivery of all the Homes England land holdings across a geography which stretches Lincolnshire Wash across to the  Welsh Border as well as stretching down to Devon and Cornwall.

Lucy holds membership of both the RTPI and RICS membership and has led Home England activity across a number of high profile projects.

Lucy is recognised within the industry for her straight talking can do approach. She has also acted as a career mentor to a number of people both within and outside the organisation and regularly speaks at events to encourage more young people to consider careers in the construction industry. Previous winner of the Homes England National Award for Inspirational Leadership

Waheed Nazir

Chairman
Arden Cross

Waheed has over 20 years of experience in planning, development and regeneration. He has held senior positions at Birmingham City Council, and more recently was appointed as the Non-Executive Chairman of Arden Cross Limited. He also advises public and private sector clients on regeneration and development projects across the UK. He is a visiting Professor at Birmingham City University and in 2017 was awarded an honorary Doctorate by Aston University. In October 2020, Waheed was awarded a Fellowship from the Academy of Social Sciences and in November 2020 was announced as the Property Personality of the Year for the Midlands. In 2019, he wrote and edited a book titled Regenerating Cities, which explores how leadership, vision and partnership working has shaped the development of UK cities over the last 30 years. Through this book he brought together some of the UK’s leading figures in the development sector, each providing their own unique and personal insight into their journeys and roles in leading some of the country’s biggest projects, including London 2012, the development of King’s Cross, estate renewal in London, and the rise of Manchester and Birmingham. He is passionate about helping young people grow and develop to unlock their potential. This has included establishing a number of programmes to provide mentoring, bursary initiatives, internships and graduate programmes in the built environment profession.

Glenn Harris MBE

Chief Executive
Midland Heart

Glenn has been Chief Executive of Midland Heart since March 2018 and was previously Finance Director.

Glenn joined Midland Heart following a career spanning seven years at East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA), where he spent five years as Executive Director of Corporate Services, followed by two years as Deputy Chief Executive. Prior to that, he was Deputy Chief Executive at NHS Logistics, supplying over £1bn of consumable goods to all NHS Trusts across England

Glenn received an MBE for services to business in 2012.

Keith Simmons

Divisional Managing Director
Taylor Wimpey

Keith joined the house building industry in 1985 as an undergraduate trainee for Wimpey Homes.  Having qualified from Nottingham Trent with a degree in residential development, his career progressed as a land buyer with Beazer, Barratt and Wimpey operating in the south east of England before moving into general management.  He took a 12 month career break in 2002 to compete as a Watch Leader aboard Glasgow Clipper in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race.  Keith re-joined Taylor Wimpey in 2005 as an MD managing business units initially in East Anglia, moving to South Wales and then Bristol.  From 2015, he took on the role of Divisional Managing Director for Wales & West and from summer 2018 the same role managing the Midlands.  

The Midlands division of Taylor Wimpey operates three regional business units and delivers approximately 2,000 homes per annum across 40 outlets.  This includes 500 affordable homes and provides an annual planning gain contribution of £50 million+ through S106/CIL.

Kate Still

Chief Operating Officer
WM Housing Group

Kate Still is Chief Operating Officer of WM Housing Group, one of the largest social housing providers in the Midlands. Kate was previously National Director of Housing for the 80,000 unit, social housing portfolio at Sanctuary Group. Between 2009-2013 she was a member of the Homes and Communities Agency Equality Board Advisory Panel. Before joining the sector, she worked in economic development and was the National Advisor to all 9 English Regional Development Agencies on Social Enterprise and Enterprise in deprived areas. Kate has also worked internationally as Director of Cultural Shift South East - a social business development partnership between UNDP Poland, Misericordia Italy and Oxford’s Said Business School. She has spoken nationally and internationally on a diverse range of issues related to housing and economic development. She is an Alumni of the London School of Economics and an Economic and Social Research Council scholar.