Mike Slade

Chairman
Helical plc

Michael Slade FRICS, is Chairman of Helical plc, a UK-listed property development and investment company, one of the best performing quoted property stocks in the UK. 

Mike is well known for his enthusiasm for yachting and launched his third “Leopard”, a 100-foot swing-keel ocean racer, in June 2007, in which he won the Rolex Fastnet Race, breaking the record by some nine hours.  Since then Leopard has captured a number of records including the Transatlantic in seven days.

He is an enthusiastic partner in his wife Heather's thoroughbred horse breeding, business and racehorse ownership, a keen supporter of the many sports, enjoyed by his family and is heavily involved in raising funds for charity.  He is President of LandAid, the property industry’s charity raising funds for the homeless.

Other positions and interests include:

President, Land Aid Charitable Trust, Trustee, Purley Park (Home for adults with Learning Disabilities), Vice Admiral, Marie Rose Trust, Vice Patron, Festival of the Sea (IFOS), Trustee, Sherborne School Foundation, Fellow, Wellington College Fellow, College of Estate Management, Fellow, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Chartered Surveyors, Treasurer of the Conservative Party

Richard Upton

Chief Executive
U+I

Richard is a creative entrepreneur and patron of the arts, who is passionate about quality of place, architecture, heritage and provenance. Over the course of his career, he has established, built and sold four property investment and professional companies and developed more than six million square feet of mixed-use real estate.

Pioneering Mount Anvil in 1991, Richard delivered 5,000 student bedrooms and regenerated several award-wining social housing projects. In 1998 he co-founded Cathedral Healthcare and Cathedral Group PLC, nurturing the latter to become a market-leader in public-private partnership developments and building a pipeline of over £2bn.

In 2014, Cathedral merged with Development Securities, which ultimately became U+I in 2015. U+I is a listed public company with a development pipeline of >£11.5bn. Together with U+I’s Chief Executive Matthew Weiner, Richard is a driving force behind the strategic direction of the company, whose vision is to create long-lasting social and economic change for communities and sustainable value for shareholders.

David Partridge

Managing Partner
Argent

David joined Argent in 1990, he was appointed Joint Chief Executive in 2006 and Managing Partner of the new Argent LLP in 2012 and is Joint CEO of the new Argent Related Partnership. He has overall responsibility for all Argent business, including structuring and establishing financial and management programmes. He oversees the sourcing, master planning, building design, financing and legal aspects for all projects.

David is President of the British Council

for Offices and sits on the Policy Committee of the British Property Federation and on the Advisory Board for the UKTI’s Regeneration Investment Organisation (RIO). He was one of the founding members and now ex-Chairman of both the Piccadilly Partnership in Manchester and the King’s Cross and St Pancras Business Partnership Ltd and is ex-Chairman of CityCo in Manchester.

David read architecture at Cambridge and is

a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and has served on a number of RIBA practice committees.

In May 2015, David was awarded NW Insider

Property Personality of the Year, and in April 2014, David jointly won the Property Week Personality of the Year Award with Roger Madelin. 

Craig McWilliam

Executive Director, London Estate, Chief Executive (designate January 2017)
Grosvenor Britain & Ireland

Craig McWilliam FRICS was appointed to the Britain & Ireland Board on joining Grosvenor in 2010.  In 2013 he took over as Executive Director responsible for all investment and development on the 300 acre London Estate having previously managed UK development activities outside Mayfair and Belgravia. Prior to joining Grosvenor he was a Managing Director at Fortress Investment Group with responsibility for real estate in the company’s European private equity business. Formerly he worked at Rodamco, UBS and Chesterton.  In January 2017 he will take up the post of Chief Executive, Grosvenor Britain and Ireland.  Craig holds a degree in Land Economy from the University of Cambridge.  He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, a Trustee of LandAid and a Director of the New West End Company.

Anthea Harries

Portfolio Manager, St James’s
The Crown Estate

Anthea was previously at The British Land Company plc, where she worked for 10 years on the West End and City portfolios. She is a Chartered Surveyor, with a degree in Estate Management from Northumbria University.