Duncan Sutherland

Group Regeneration Director
Sigma Capital Plc

Previously, Duncan was Director of City Development for Coventry City Council where he introduced innovations such as Coventry and Warwickshire Partnerships, city centre management, integrated community development and chaired the West Midlands Strategic Sites Working Group. He also achieved city centre projects such as Coventry Canal Basin, Coventry University Science Park, various leisure and retail schemes and was heavily involved in the initial regeneration efforts in Hillfields working closely with the local community. Duncan Sutherland also worked at Inner City Enterprises PLC, and was also the Chief Executive of The EDI Group Ltd, a specialist regeneration/property investment company owned by the City of Edinburgh Council.

Duncan is a Non-­‐ Executive Director on the Board of HS2, a Non Executive Director on Scottish Canals, a member of the Regeneration Investment Organisation Advisory Board (part of UKTI) and a Trustee of the South Bank Sinfonia.

Tim Heatley

CEO
Capital & Centric

Tim is co-founder of Capital&Centric. In just five years since it started they’ve completed over 750,000 sq ft of development, they spend £1m a week on regeneration activity and have won 15 awards for design and regeneration. 

Some of their projects in Manchester include the £30m conversion of Crusader Mills in Piccadilly and the £200m Kampus Project and the recently completed Foundry a 50,000 sq ft creative workspace in Salford.

Having completed 5 developments last year alone the pipeline of projects Manchester stands at £330m. Projects in Liverpool include Littlewoods Film Studios, and the recently completed Bunker, Tempest and Hangar projects. The total development pipeline is in excess of £500m.

David Brown

Chief Executive Officer
Transport for the North

David Brown, Chief Executive of Transport for the North (TfN), is a prominent leader in northern transport, with over 25 years’ experience in both the public and private sectors covering all modes of public transport.

As Chief Executive of TfN, David is responsible for transforming regional connectivity and driving economic growth in the region. He will oversee the development of TfN into a statutory organisation by 2017, bringing together the northern transport authorities to allow the North to speak with a single voice on the big transport decisions which will benefit the region as a whole, driving growth and successfully securing its position as a true Northern Powerhouse.

David joined TfN from his post as Chief Executive/Director General at Merseytravel and Head of Paid Service of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority (LCRCA.) Prior to this David was Director General of South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive.

Karen Hirst

Director
Eric Wright Group

Karen was appointed managing director of Maple Grove Developments in 2018, having joined Eric Wright Group in 2016 as a divisional director and is on the Group Board. She brings 29 years’ property and development experience from both public and private sectors.

Karen delivers the development opportunities, including some of the North West’s major commercial projects. Karen and her team are currently underway with a number of town/city centre schemes including; Burnley, Blackburn and Preston and industrial developments at Deeside and Winsford. Karen is also the lead for the Lancashire Regeneration Property Partnership working with a number of public sector partners to enable their projects to happen.

Prior to joining Maple Grove Karen spent 10 years in Salford as Development Director for Salford City Council and Regeneration Company. Karen and her team delivered a number of significant mixed use development projects with the private sector, such as; Salford Central, Greengate and MediaCityUK.

Ken Bishop

Director - UK Development
JLL

Ken's activities focus primarily on the development of major City Centre sites. From an original focus on office development his experience now includes all aspects of mixed use development including Residential, Hotels and Multi Story Car Parks.

Ken has advised on some of the UK Regions most significant commercial developments. In Manchester City Centre he was sole development advisor on three speculative office developments completed in the last 12 months – 101 Embankment; One New Bailey and Two St Peter’s Square. Previous advice has included 3 Hardman St, Spinningfields and pre-let acquisitions for the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Civil Justice Centre. In Birmingham he advised on the city’s largest pre-let of at Brindley Place. In total Ken has advised on new developments amounting to nearly 10 million sq ft. 

He is currently Lead Director for Noma for Hermes/Co-operative Group a scheme of 4 million sq ft in Manchester City Centre and the proposed development Airport City on behalf of Manchester Airports Group.