24 Women Leading UK Real Estate In 2024

Passionate about politics and property, Sherin Aminossehe is a key player in changing the way government deals with its assets. Initially an architect, she joined government from the private sector, serving as executive director of the Government Property Unit and head of Property Profession and Function for the Civil Service.

Tapping a £354B portfolio, she worked across government to create growth and housing and reduced the estate by 2,100 buildings, saving more than £1B in costs and bringing in £3.6B in receipts.

Now, as the first director of infrastructure in the Ministry of Defence, she is responsible for the £5.1B Defence Estate Optimisation Portfolio, delivering once-in-a-generation facilities. She is also responsible for a strategic balance of investment decisions for a further £5B.

Aminossehe is race champion for the MoD, a trustee at the Imperial War Museums and a senior adviser to Transport for London’s Places for London.

Over her career, she has won multiple awards, including an Asian Women of Achievement Award and the Civil Service Award for Collaboration. In her spare time, she loves drawing and a cup of Earl Grey.

Ekaterina Avdonina is the CEO and co-founder of Mirastar, a player in industrial and logistics real estate with more than €2.3B of managed assets that counts KKR among its investors. Mirastar was founded in 2019 and has expanded into six European countries, including the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany.

Starting out as an accountant and auditor, Avdonina was involved in numerous real estate projects where her passion for the asset class quickly emerged. A former real estate banker and investor, she progressed to co-found industrial and logistics platform Delin Properties in 2011. Under Avdonina’s management, assets under management increased from €400M to more than €1.3B in less than three years. 

Outside of her professional life, Avdonina is an avid traveller who loves hiking and exploring nature with her family. She is also committed to charitable work, including involvement with various organisations focussed on children and medical research.

Honor Barratt is the CEO of Birchgrove, a specialist age-exclusive developer working to establish a portfolio of assisted living neighbourhoods with well-thought-out facilities for rent. Its backers include M&G.

Central to Birchgrove's proposition is the belief that renting instead of owning a home is the most liberating form of tenure, allowing neighbours to retain their independence without the burden of homeownership.

Of the nine developments in the portfolio, Birchgrove has two neighbourhoods open in Woking and Ewell, both in Surrey, and one in Sidcup, in Kent. Following closely behind are Banstead, Godalming, Leatherhead — all in Surrey — and Chiswick, Hampton Court and Mill Hill in London.

Barratt worked in television before moving into the senior living sector and is looking for opportunities to colocate older residents at the heart of wider developments on a forward-fund or forward-commit basis. When she isn’t at work at Birchgrove, she enjoys visiting her mother, who lives in the Birchgrove community in Woking.

Anne Breen has been with Abrdn for 25 years, and she was appointed global head of real estate in 2023. Her tenure has seen Abrdn’s real estate assets under management increase to more than £37B, with the sector becoming a core area of the company's £500B investment business.

She has played a crucial role in modernising Abrdn’s real estate business. That includes driving its research-driven approach, diversifying the portfolio globally and launching innovative products.

Breen has served on the board of the Association of Real Estate Funds since 2020, becoming chair in 2024.

She also sits on Abrdn’s global inclusion committee and is a member of the Abrdn alternative funds board and Abrdn Investments Ireland Ltd.

Breen juggles work life with looking after her two children. She loves to travel, including to the Outer Hebrides. She also enjoys exercising, using noncombat boxing as her main stress reliever.

Lorna Brown is the CEO at Birchwood Real Estate Capital, an alternative lender she founded in 2022 with the backing of U.S. insurer W.R. Berkley. 

In a relatively short time, Brown established a diverse team that aims to bring a partnership-led approach to debt lending based on the team's track record as borrowers and lenders. It has already provided financing to several private equity houses to support recent acquisitions.

Brown has 25 years of experience across real estate equity and debt, having undertaken a diverse range of senior roles at Blackstone, RBS, L&G and Delancey, spanning investment, debt underwriting and execution, asset management and capital raising. She originally started as a graduate surveyor with DTZ in the City office, and she supported the development of junior and return-to-work staff in the industry as her own career progressed.  

Outside of work, Brown prioritises time with her family to enjoy travel, skiing and golf (plus lots of kids-sport watching). She also plays nonexecutive director roles in related industries.

Nadine Buckland co-founded real estate credit provider Zenzic Capital in 2014. After initially growing the firm’s funds under management through mezzanine lending, Zenzic launched a real estate opportunistic credit strategy focused on the residential development, student accommodation, data centre, hospitality and self-storage sectors across the UK and Europe.

Together with co-founder Tom Lloyd-Jones, Buckland leads a team of more than 20 real estate specialists and back-office professionals. 

Buckland is passionate about encouraging and inspiring women in the male-dominated real estate industry and recently partnered with Girls Are Investors to help the next generation of women in the industry.

Balancing her role as a mother of two with running a business, Buckland is a strong multitasker. Outside of work, she is a dedicated supporter of Crystal Palace Football Club and loves spending time in her home in Cornwall with her family and dogs.

Rita-Rose Gagné is the CEO of Hammerson plc, an owner, operator and developer of urban real estate in the UK, Ireland and France with a market capitalisation of £1.5B. She joined the company in 2020 to develop and spearhead the strategic transformation of the business.

Prior to joining Hammerson, Gagné was president of growth markets at Ivanhoé Cambridge. There, she was responsible for more than $8B of real estate assets, platforms and a development pipeline across Asia Pacific and Latin America, covering logistics, retail, mixed-use, office and residential sectors. After joining Ivanhoé Cambridge in 2006, she held a variety of positions, including executive vice president of global strategy, and roles in portfolio management and investment funds.

A trained lawyer, she was a senior partner at Fasken, a global law firm covering real estate, infrastructure, corporate mergers and acquisitions.

Helen Gordon is CEO of Grainger, the UK’s largest listed residential landlord, with a market capitalisation of £1.75B.

She was appointed chief executive of the company in January 2016 after joining from RBS, where she had been global head of real estate asset management since October 2011.

Prior to that, Gordon was director of Legal & General Property, responsible for the main life fund as well as eight smaller funds, group property director of Railtrack and managing director of John Laing Developments.

Gordon is senior independent director on the board of Derwent London, a nonexecutive director of BusinessLDN and serves as vice chair and board director of the European Public Real Estate Association. She is past president of the British Property Federation and was a member of the government’s Urban Centre Recovery Taskforce for coronavirus recovery.

In her spare time, Gordon enjoys visiting Cornwall, boating, theatre and food.

Jenny Hammarlund is a senior managing director at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. Based in London, she leads the real estate investment group in the UK and Europe as well as global strategy and value creation. She is responsible for overseeing investment activity, strategy and overall portfolio management, and she also led the integration of Cadillac Fairview’s international investment team into OTPP in 2024. 

Hammarlund has over 25 years of experience in private equity globally, primarily focused on real estate. She previously held positions as managing director at H.I.G. Capital and director at KKR, where she was focused on sourcing and executing real estate investments across Europe. Hammarlund's résumé also includes stints as director at Värde Partners in London and as vice president at Lehman Brothers Real Estate Partners in New York, where she was focused on real estate investments in the U.S. She speaks four languages. 

She enjoys travelling to explore new cultures and experiences, spending time with her daughters, and her Peloton bike.

Jessica Hardman is CEO and co-founder of Aboria Capital. She has worked in real estate investment for more than 20 years, starting her career at BNP Paribas, then joining Deutsche Bank’s real estate funds business in 2004 before joining DWS Group in 2017.

Hardman has enjoyed a varied career, leading transaction teams culminating in €12B of transactions and later running European fund management for international investors. She was a pioneer and trusted portfolio manager for the wave of inward capital flows from Asian institutional clients and built billions in assets under management for Deutsche Bank. In 2023, Hardman became the CEO of DWS UK, overseeing 500 staff and more than €200B in assets under management across global alternatives and passive public market strategies.

As the cycle resets, Hardman is making her next career pivot. As announced two months ago, Hardman is co-founding a new investment management business, Aboria Capital, with development and operational specialist Downing Students. The ambition: to become a leading, vertically integrated partner for investors in the European living sector.

In July 2024, she became the president of the British Property Federation and joined the board of INREV, the European Association for Investors in Non-Listed Real Estate.

Hardman enjoys the hustle and bustle of family life, including eating and feeding, discovering new places and just chilling out together.

Stephanie Hyde is the UK CEO and CEO of markets advisory across Europe, the Middle East and Africa at JLL. With more than 25 years of experience in professional services, she joined JLL in 2021 from PwC to lead the UK business, a role that has since expanded.

In the UK, Hyde drives strategy and delivers results for JLL's leasing advisory and property management businesses. She champions sustainability, technology and business transformation, supporting clients and promoting opportunities. Employee well-being is also a priority for Hyde, implementing policies for a positive work environment.

She has renewed JLL’s commitment to sustainability, expanding the team and its services while introducing a new sustainability framework. She continues this work across the EMEA region and translates sustainability commitments into measurable actions to achieve net-zero carbon goals.

Outside of work, Hyde likes to relax by spending time with her family, walking the dogs and swimming.

Melanie Leech joined the British Property Federation as CEO in January 2015, having previously spent nine years as director general of the Food and Drink Federation. 

Leech began her working life as a police constable in the Metropolitan Police Service, then held senior roles in civil service. Her role is to champion a diverse, successful and sustainable UK real estate sector that is recognised for the positive economic and social benefits it delivers to communities across the country.

Leech is a trustee of the property industry charity LandAid and chair of the Council of the University of Essex. She was awarded a CBE in 2015 for services to the food and drink industry.

Outside work, she enjoys spending time with family and her dogs, and the never-ending fight to keep weeds and bugs under control in the garden.

Susie McCabe has been co-CEO for McArthurGlen, the outlet centre specialist, since October 2020. She oversees company functions to develop business strategies and optimise asset values for its 24 designer outlets in Europe and Canada. 

McCabe joined the business in September 2018 as deputy CEO. Prior to McArthurGlen, she spent four years at Under Armour as senior vice president of global retail, responsible for creating and implementing worldwide retail strategy. Before that, she spent 16 years with Ralph Lauren Corp. in several senior roles in its full-price and outlet businesses.

McCabe is committed to inclusion, equity and diversity, sponsoring affinity groups, learning and development, and other equality initiatives.

She lives in London with her husband and has two children. She loves spending time with family and friends, hanging at home and travelling together — particularly exploring new places through food, music, culture and art. She’s an avid football fan, supporting Arsenal and any team her son is playing for. She also loves walking, running and cycling to stay fit and clear her mind.

Joanne McNamara is an executive vice president at Oxford Properties, the global real estate investor, developer and manager. She is responsible for the operating performance and leadership of the 40-plus-person European business. 

McNamara is a member of Oxford’s leadership team and its investment and executive committees, and she recently took a nonexecutive role at ESR, a pan-Asian fund management business. She was one of Oxford’s first team members in London, joining the investment team in 2010. Over the past decade, she has led many of the organisation’s most significant investment and development transactions.

In her spare time, McNamara enjoys spending time with her two young children, loving nothing more than a weekend taking them for walks on the beach and on bike rides. She is a big fan of sports, with netball being her favourite, though she loves anything from tag rugby to yoga and Pilates.

Isabelle Scemama is global head of AXA IM Alts, one of the world’s largest real estate owners, overseeing its €185B alternative business unit, which employs more than 800 people in 17 offices and serves more than 600 clients globally. 

She also sits on the AXA IM real estate and infrastructure investment committees and chairs the AXA IM Alts Management Board.

Scemama joined AXA IM - Real Assets in 2001 to develop the third-party business. Notably, she launched the CRE and infrastructure debt lending platforms in 2005 and 2013, respectively, before taking responsibility for its full fund management activity. She was appointed CEO in 2017 and took on responsibility for the overall alternatives asset management activity as global head in 2020.

She previously held positions in corporate and real estate financing at Paribas.

Outside of work, Scemama enjoys swimming, yoga and reading.

Lynda Shillaw is CEO of Harworth Group, the listed land and property regeneration company with a market capitalisation of £550M. She has worked in the UK real estate sector for more than 30 years in both London and the regions.  

Prior to joining Harworth in 2020, Shillaw held leadership roles at BT, the Co-op, Lloyds Banking Group and Manchester Airports Group. She has been involved in landmark corporate transactions, notably the sales of the BT portfolio to Telereal Trillium and the sale of fund manager Scottish Widows Asset Management to Aberdeen. She has worked extensively on initiating and delivering large regional developments such as NOMA and Airport City in the north-west.  

Shillaw has served as a nonexecutive director on the board of The Crown Estate and as senior independent director of Vivid Housing Association. She is chair of the British Property Federation Regional Policy Committee. 

In her spare time, she enjoys cycling, playing tennis and spending time with her family and friends.

Vanessa Simms joined Landsec as chief financial officer in May 2021 and has financial experience across the property sector, having held the same role at Grainger as well as senior finance positions at Unite Group and Segro. She is a member of the company's executive leadership team and attends audit committee meetings at the invitation of the committee chairs. 

Simms has particular expertise in leading and implementing strategic change in businesses. She is also a nonexecutive director of Rotork, a global provider of mission-critical flow control and instrumentation solutions for the industrial actuation and flow control markets.

When away from the property sector, Simms enjoys spending time with her family. She has a keen interest in travelling, visiting places that enable her passions for skiing and sailing.

Anna Strongman is CEO of Oxford University Development, a £4B joint venture between Oxford University and Legal & General.

She is leading the development of new homes, academic faculties, commercial research and development, and supporting infrastructure at sites that include a new global innovation village at Begbroke and a rejuvenated urban quarter at Osney Mead. Her role is to drive development that supports the future of the university and city whilst delivering long-term, sustainable returns to L&G. 

Before this role, Strongman was managing partner of Related Argent, where she had lead roles at King’s Cross and Brent Cross South. She is also a trustee of Dolphin Living and a nonexecutive director of the Government Property Agency. In her spare time, she loves camping, collecting antique candlesticks and swimming in the Thames.

Kathryn Thomas has been head of international real estate services for Citi since April 2021. She oversees a portfolio of 13M SF across 72 countries in all aspects of real estate and its associated services. 

The international team includes 134 full-time employees and 4,032 contracted staff members, and its portfolio has significant projects underway in London, Frankfurt, Germany, Dublin, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and Chennai, India. In London, it is undertaking one of the largest office retrofit projects in the world at its 1.8M SF regional headquarters, a bellwether for large-scale office retrofits.

Prior to joining Citi, Thomas was the global business partner to the investment banking and asset management divisions at Deutsche Bank. There, she was the global lead for all real estate activities in any M&A bankwide and served as secretary to its global real estate investment committee, the delegated authority of the Deutsche Bank board for all real estate investment decisions.

Thomas is married with two children and is a champion of diversity. She was a founding member of the board for CREW UK. Until recently, she was a member of the council at Essex University.

Jess Tomlinson joined Lloyds Bank in August as managing director and head of real estate and housing, leading one of the largest lenders to UK property. The team is fundamental to Lloyds’ purpose of helping Britain prosper and covers a broad range of clients and segments, including leading housebuilders, hotels, many of the UK’s social housing associations, regional property developers, and listed real estate multinationals and investors.

Prior to Lloyds, Tomlinson spent 10 years with Barclays in a range of real estate leadership roles, most recently as head of public sector. Before Barclays, she worked at Blackstone, RBS and Allen & Overy. 

Tomlinson is mum to two boys, 13 and 10, so her life outside work is spent hanging out with them and doing as much exercise as she can squeeze in. 

Sophie Van Oosterom joined Schroders in January 2021 as the global head of real estate, responsible for leading growth strategy and delivering investment performance to clients. She chairs the real estate management and investment committees.

Van Oosterom was most recently CEO and chief investment officer of Europe, the Middle East and Africa for CBRE Global Investors, where she led change management and growth of the platform to €40B of assets under management. She also served as a member of the global executive and global investment committees.

Before that, Van Oosterom was a managing director at Lehman Brothers Real Estate Partners, now Silverpeak, and head of asset/portfolio management for Europe and Asia. She started her career in investment banking with J.P. Morgan and Barings and has more than 26 years of industry experience.

Van Oosterom enjoys various sports, including playing tennis and padel, skiing and kiting. She recently has become a keen Hyrox competitor. 

She has three sport-enthusiastic kids and spends most weekends next to a hockey pitch. 

After starting her career at Blackstone, Jenny Wang co-founded the logistics investor, developer and asset manager Sunrise Real Estate in 2021. Since then, she helped take the business from a standing start into one that has quietly invested nearly €1B of equity capital into more than 20M SF of high-quality logistics assets across the UK and Europe. 

As chief operating officer and head of asset management, Wang is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day management of Sunrise and the asset management activities within the portfolio, as well as being a member of the investment committee.  

Wang is passionate about the recruitment and retention of female talent and leads the Sunrise Ladies Initiative, which aims to provide an empowering and supportive environment for open dialogues amongst female colleagues. She graduated magna cum laude from the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, but the decision to take a module in real estate while there ignited a spark for the sector.

Her hobbies include tennis, table tennis, skiing and travelling.

CEO Cath Webster leads Thriving Investments, the socially conscious fund manager specialising in the UK living sector that is part of the Places for People Group. Her focus is to increase funds under management alongside the delivery of social value, augmenting the existing fund management platform across high-quality affordable housing, private rented residential and urban regeneration strategies. 

Webster joined in January 2023 from property development and investment specialist Quintain, where she was executive director for strategy and investment. 

She takes an active role in mentoring programmes and is an advocate for diversity and inclusion, being the senior lead in the parent and carer steering group at Places for People. Combining her passion for the arts and sustainability, she has been co-chair of the Creative Land Trust for the last five years. The charitable trust aims to provide 1,000 permanent, affordable creative studios across London. 

At home, she loves to spend time with her daughter. She is an avid singer and enjoys being part of a local choir. Webster is also trying to improve her tennis serve.

Becky Worthington joined Canary Wharf Group as chief financial officer in March 2021 after previously serving in the same role at iQ Student Accommodation and as CFO and chief operations officer at Countryside Properties.

Worthington spent 15 years at Quintain Estates & Development as finance director and later as deputy chief executive. She founded and served as CEO of Lodestone Capital Partners from 2012 to 2015.

She qualified as a chartered accountant with PwC. Worthington is a board member at Alstria Office REIT and was a former board member for FTSE companies British Land, Hansteen and Aga Rangemaster.

Outside of work, Worthington said she is a “very amateur triathlete,” and she loves sailing and skiing with the family.