Chris Taylor

Chief Executive Officer – Hermes Real Estate & Head and Private Markets
Hermes Real Estate

Chris joined Hermes in 2010, having successfully established Australian fund manager QIC’s European office in London. Prior to that he was head of European Property at HSBC. Chris spent the majority of his career as a fund manager at Prudential, where he led the diversification of its UK real estate exposure into overseas markets in 2001.

Under his leadership, Hermes Real Estate has led a number of landmark real estate transactions, including the largest regeneration project in Europe at King’s Cross, the development of the iconic Silverstone circuit, the major regeneration at Paradise Circus Birmingham and the rejuvenation of central Milton Keynes. Chris is currently the Chairman of MEPC, a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, a member of the Bank of England Commercial Property Committee and a Founding Board Member of INREV. As past President of the British Property Federation, Chris has engaged actively with Central and Local Government to recognise the pivotal contribution that real estate and infrastructure can make as conduits for growth and regeneration.

As CEO of Hermes Real Estate, managing over £7 billion of real estate, Chris is also the BTPS Director on the Argent Board and has taken a lead role in promoting responsible investment with major regeneration schemes such as King’s Cross London, Paradise Circus Birmingham, NOMA Manchester and Wellington Place Leeds.

 

Chris holds a BSc (Hons) in Land Management

from Reading University.

Chris Grigg

Chief Executive
British Land

Chris Grigg is chief executive of British Land, a constituent of the FTSE100. Since taking the role in 2009, he has put placemaking, wellbeing and design excellence at the heart of British Land’s approach to real estate. This is summed up in the company’s strategic focus on creating “Places People Prefer”. Aligned to the corporate strategy, British Land’s sustainability activity addresses major social trends and benefits over 35,000 people every year. British Land’s portfolio, which covers approximately 25 million sq ft, includes three office-led campuses in central London and retail-led assets across the UK. Prior to joining British Land, Chris was Chief Executive of Barclays Commercial Bank and a partner at Goldman Sachs. He is a Non-Executive Director of BAE Systems plc and is on the Executive Board of the European Public Real Estate Association (EPRA).

Helen Gordon

Chief Executive Officer
Grainger plc

Helen was appointed Chief Executive of Grainger in January 2016.

Helen has spent over 40 years in Real Estate and joined Grainger from RBS where she spent five years as Global Head of Real Estate Asset Management. Prior to that, Helen held the role of Director of Legal and General Property. Other previous roles include Group Property Director of Railtrack and Managing Director of John Laing Developments.

Helen sits on the Board of Derwent London as Senior Independent Director, is currently Deputy Chairman of the European Public Real Estate Association and is Past President of the BPF.

Helen is a chartered surveyor and an Honorary Fellow of University College of Estate Management.

Madeleine McDougall

Global Head of the Real Estate & Housing Team
Lloyds

Madeleine is the Global Head of theReal Estate & Housing Team at Lloyds. She joined in November 2014 as Head of Institutional, looking after Private Equity, Pension Fund and Sovereign Wealth clients before taking up her current position in August 2017. Her role involves developing and leading the business activity for relationships across the Commercial Real Estate market with a specialist team based across 6 UK locations. In 2016 Lloyds lent £8.6 bn into the UK CRE market, delivering €1,547m of debt syndication. Madeleine was key in driving the client franchise which included leading UK institutions, large global investors and best in class developers. The business has continued to innovate with a £1bn Green financing fund and providing long term financing through its Scottish Widows arm. She previously held the Head of International clients at pbb, where she covered Europe wide real estate financing from 2011-2014. Prior to this, she worked at Westimmo and Eurohypo and she originally started her career on the equity side at Trillium working on the sale and leaseback of Norwich Union assets.

Prasanna Kannan

Co-Founder
Native Finance

Prasanna Kannan is a Co-Founder of Native Finance, the digital brokerage for commercial real estate (CRE) that enables streamlined and efficient financing across the capital stack for development and investment transactions. Native's platform currently has pricing data on over 550 lenders and equity providers active in the UK across a range of asset types. Investors in the business include Passion Capital, one of Europe’s leading venture capital funds as well as high profile angel investors such as Lord Stevenson, former Chairman of HBOS.

Prior to this he was the Portfolio Manager at Sir Elton John's charitable foundation, where he led their social investment work including launching one of the first Social Impact Bonds for HIV treatment in the world. Pras started his career on the London trading floor at Goldman Sachs and has a Masters in Engineering from Oxford University and a Masters in Management from Cambridge University, where his thesis focussed on microfinancing and gender empowerment in South Asia.

Melanie Leech CBE

Chief Executive
BPF

Melanie joined the British Property Federation as Chief Executive in January 2015, following nine years as Director General of the Food and Drink Federation.

Melanie began her working life as a Police Constable in the Metropolitan Police Service. She joined the civil service (HM Customs) in 1988 and subsequently held senior roles in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Office of the Rail Regulator and the Cabinet Office. Her role is to champion UK real estate and to promote a long-term, sustainable partnership between governments and the sector to deliver a high quality built environment, creating economic and social value for local communities.

Melanie is a Fellow of the RSA and an external member of the Council of the University of Essex. In 2015 she was awarded a CBE for services to the food and drink industry.