The Future of London Retail

Daniel is a founding Director of Exemplar and shares overall responsibility for the company’s development portfolio with business partner Clive Bush. Daniel was educated at Harrow and began his career at Richard Ellis in the City of London, first in agency before moving to specialise in corporate real estate. He joined Development Securities plc (U&I plc) in 1995 where he focused on Central London development, until moving to establish Exemplar in 2003. Daniel is very active in the industry; He is Immediate Past Chairman of the Westminster Property Association, was an inaugural Board member of the West End Partnership and currently sits on the Property Steering Board of the New West End Company. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. In his time he has been the lucky recipient of a number of awards including the “Outstanding Individual Contribution to Real Estate” Award in the prestigious 2015 OAS Awards. Daniel has two young children and outside of the office enjoys mostly any activity involving water, in particular being a keen yachtsman and water-skier. Closer to home, he is an avid backgammon player.

Well, I started off over in Australia, just like Westfield, but I couldn’t resist the challenge offered by the UK market. As General Manager Marketing I am responsible for marketing programmes across the UK. This can cover everything from a promotion in Westfield Derby to the launch of an entire new centre – although there’s been nothing that equals the record-breaking size of Westfield Stratford City. What makes the Westfield organisation unique is the strong feeling of family, which I believe stems from the respect we have for the founder Frank Lowy. As a result, we are very focused and are constantly striving to do better. It takes a certain person to join the team. You’ve got to have a strong personality and really believe in your convictions; confidence can take you a long way in this business. In fact I’m hoping that in the future I will be able to work even further across the globe with Westfield.

Sienne is a pragmatic & strategic business developer, product director and innovator working within omnichannel retail with teams across e-commerce, stores, marketing, customer service and IT to achieve commercial growth targets through category expansion, new product development to harness new technologies to enhance customer engagement & usability in a scalable and profitable way

Marie Hickey is a Director of Savills Commercial Research specialising in Central London retail and UK Hospitality sectors. She has a special interest in understanding retailing brands, wider global drivers and consumer trends in order to gain insight into the evolving retail and hotel landscape.

Phil has over 20 years' experience in real estate. He has held a variety of appointments within SEGRO and has been instrumental in a number of key transactions for the Group. He is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS). Current Appointments Phil was appointed Chief Investment Officer of SEGRO in November 2011, having joined SEGRO in 1995. He joined the Board as an Executive Director in May 2013. Previous Appointments Phil started his career in 1990 in the Industrial Agency and Development team of King Sturge, where he held a variety of positions. Prior to becoming an Executive Director at SEGRO, he was Business Unit Director for London Markets.

Tariq started his career as a consumer financial services lawyer, creating retail credit products and taking them to market. In 2006 he participated in the MBO of a fledgling financial services company, helping build out the optimisation of data to build precise customer profiles, leading to very personalised customer engagement strategies. He also oversaw all legal and regulatory obligations, being voted to the Board of the industry trade association to engage with regulators on the drafting of new financial services regulation. The company was sold in 2014, when Tariq then turned his focus to the fintech sector. In 2016 he joined AgentCASH, an enterprise-grade omnichannel inventory management, mPOS and analytics platform that provides retailers a platform to engage with customers through multiple channels, enhanced by the tech experience. AgentCASH is also unique in its use of open APIs and an SDK to integrate its payment platform with native systems, websites and apps and so bring mobility and automated reporting to legacy customer platforms. AgentCASH is used by estate agents, hotels, couriers, taxi firms and cafes as well as the retail industry.

Paul started working with Lush in 2008 as UK & Ireland Property Manager, becoming Property Director in 2011. He worked closely with the Finance Director to oversee the move towards larger stores, a ‘new look’ shop roll out including the first Spa shops, and enhanced Lush’s relationships with landlords and developers. In 2012, Paul moved into a General Manager role for the UK Retail business, continuing to work with Finance in formulating a UK Development team and overseeing changes to the business which included a new staff training programme and 5 star manager reviews. In 2013 Paul took on a Global Property role, essentially ensuring all international shops were moving as fast as possible to complete Lush’s new vision of 1000 shops globally with £1m average sale and 25% profit. Driving the retail strategy in terms of store size and look, his current focus is pushing the property element of the retail business to get bigger stores sooner following the successful acquisition of Lush’s largest shop in the world, the 10,000 sq ft store on Oxford Street, London in 2015. The future is about the right stores of the right size in the right locations and, alongside being responsible for this property element of the company, he also spends time working more directly with the Japanese business.

Emma is a Director of NewRiver and sits on the Executive Committee. As Head of Asset Management, she has overarching responsibility for the financial and operational performance of the retail portfolio throughout the UK. Emma’s responsibilities also include oversight of New River’s property management and the Company’s Environmental, Social and Governance programme. Emma is a qualified chartered surveyor with over 20 years’ experience in the retail property market. Emma is a Board member of the High Street Task Force which provides guidance to help communities and local government transform their high streets and Emma also sits on the Commercial Committee of the British Property Federation. NewRiver is a listed Real Estate Investment Trust specialising in buying, managing, developing and recycling convenience-led, community-focused retail and leisure assets throughout the UK. The NewRiver portfolio is focused on the fastest growing and most sustainable sub-sectors of the UK retail market, with grocery, convenience stores, value clothing, health & beauty and discounters. The portfolio totals £1.2 billion and comprises 33 shopping centres, 25 retail parks and over 700 wet-led community pubs that provide important everyday household goods and services to communities across the UK. For more information about NewRiver REIT plc visit www.nrr.co.uk

Iain joined Hammerson in October 2012 in the new role of UK Commercial Director, with overall responsibility for leasing, catering and commercialisation. Iain has over 20 years of retail real estate experience, most recently with Westfield.

Ross Bailey is the Founder and CEO of Appear Here. Appear Here is a short-term retail space marketplace used by thousands of brands and landlords every month. Based on the concept that renting commercial property should be as easy as booking a hotel room, Appear Here’s mission is to make retail space accessible to everyone.

James is a director in the Real Estate team at DWF LLP, where he also heads up the investment and development group. He qualified as a solicitor in 2006 and has over 10 years' experience of buying, selling, letting and developing all types of commercial property. He has a particular interest in the retail sector. He has acted for a broad client base of leading UK and international pension funds, financial institutions and international investors and has been involved in the acquisition and letting of a number of flagship stores on London's Oxford Street. More recently he led a team on the acquisition of a significant mixed use building in central Manchester (completing a £100m + transaction in just 9 days) and acted for an overseas investor on the acquisition of part of Kensington High Street. Prior to joining DWF, James spent time at international City firms CMS Cameron McKenna and Stephenson Harwood.

Ed Jenkins is Head of UK Retail at Standard Life Investments with responsibility for portfolio management and enhancement across all of Standard Life Investments’ major shopping centre and retail park assets, currently extending to around 40 assets across nine funds. He is also Fund Manager for the £1.5 billion Standard Life Investments UK Shopping Centre Trust, which includes major centres such as London’s Brent Cross Shopping Centre and Churchill Square in Brighton. Ed has 25 years of experience in the shopping centre market. He joined Standard Life Investments in 2003 having spent his earlier career in the retail department of Knight Frank in London acting on behalf of major landlord developers. He sits on the Advisory Panel of Revo (formerly the British Council of Shopping Centres). Ed is a Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and holds a BSc in Land Management from De Montfort University.

Following a degree in gene cloning, Robert entered the world of business, heading up business development for a global drinks and events consultancy company for four years before leaving to pursue his own ventures. It was at this point that he teamed up with his wife and business partner Hilary Rowland to launch Boom Cycle in 2010. The first location was opened in Shoredtich in 2011 as the first indoor cycling focussed boutique fitness studio in the UK. Since the second location opened in Holborn in 2014 the company has grown almost 300%, been voted one of the UK’s coolest brands by CoolBrands TM and Robert & Hilary both sit on the board of the UK Fitness trade body UK Active advising them on the needs of the UK’s boutique studios. Boom Cycle are about to embark on an ambitious expansion into two new locations, a prime sop in Hammersmith and a flagship site at the new Battersea Power Station development. The expansion will cement Boom Cycle as the largest operator in the UK.

During his career David Twohig has worked on major urban regeneration projects in Europe, Russia and Asia. Previously David worked for Treasury Holdings both in Ireland and China. During his time as Head of Development he worked on a number of significant mixed-use projects including the 45 million sq.ft. eco-city at Dongtan. In 2008 David was invited to work on the largest planning application ever secured in Central London at the iconic Battersea Power Station. Today David continues in his role as Chief Development Officer and Head of Design and Placemaking for the Battersea Power Station Development Company, spearheading design on what is one of the highest profile urban regeneration projects anywhere in the world. David is also the author of Living in Wonderland, a book which addresses the shortcomings of contemporary development and the need to design places for people.

Mr. Gregor is the Managing Director for Partner’s European operations. Based out of the London UK office of Partner Engineering and Science Ltd., Mr. Gregor provides technical and operational direction as well as direct oversight of Partner’s European team. In addition, Mr. Gregor serves as an environmental and European liability technical resource company wide. He also serves as National Client Manager for several private equity firms both in the USA and Europe.