Industrial & Logistics Conference
The Itinerary
Strategist and Writer
Business Editor of The Spectator
Director, Economics / Head of Logistics, Turley
Director, Kam Projects Consultants Ltd
Director, UMC Architects
Group Property Director, Wincanton
Salaried Partner, DTRE (moderator)
Futurist
Asset Manager, LaSalle Investment Management
CEO
SEGRO plc
Director
Tigrou Consulting
Career Consultant, Real Estate & Planning, Henley Business School, University of Reading
Director of Industrial & Logistics, Colliers (moderator)
Record-breaking Paralympian
Economics Editor, The Sunday Times
Broadcaster & Journalist
Conference supported by
The Speakers
Gabrielle Walker is a strategist and writer who works with businesses to address global challenges, with a particular focus on sustainability, climate change and new energy. She is the founder and director of Valence Solutions, a consultancy that works with senior business figures across sectors to reimagine and practically tackle climate change issues, in particular those that are most difficult or most often overlooked. Throughout her work Gabrielle analyses trends, challenges conventional thinking, and seeks to turn ideas into meaningful action.
As a consultant and strategist Gabrielle advises businesses around the world on areas including future investment, manufacturing and the circular economy, and the impact strategy in these sectors can have on public and employee perceptions. Touching on themes including leadership, engagement, risk and strategy she highlights instances of short-termism and misunderstanding and encourages long- term planning, open conversations and fresh thinking.
Amongst many appointments Gabrielle has taught at both Cambridge and Princeton Universities, and served as Climate Change Editor and Nature and Features Editor at the New Scientist. She is an ambassador for the collaborative environmental law charity ClientEarth, and she has presented programmes for BBC TV and radio, taking her to all seven continents to see how the world works and how it is changing. She has also written for, amongst others, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
Martin Vander Weyer is Business Editor of The Spectator, the world’s oldest weekly current affairs magazine. As well has his regular look at all things financial, policy and market related he also runs the magazine’s Economic Innovator Awards for UK Entrepreneurs. He is a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph, Literary Review, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and other national publications, as well as being an author of a number of books, plays and a collection of poetry.
Before turning his hand to journalism, Martin spent 15 years as an investment banker in London, Brussels, Eastern Europe and the Far East - including a spell in Malaysia privatising an airline. A highly experienced commentator rather than a technical economist, Martin examines the real-life impact of business, central banks and markets. He looks at public expenditure, the social responsibly of companies, boardroom activities and the real stories behind the business headlines.
Martin is an Academic Visitor at St Martin’s College, Oxford and is the author of Falling Eagle: The Decline of Barclays Bank, Fortune’s Spear, and a collection of columns and articles, Any Other Business: Life in and Out of the City. A proud Yorkshireman he is a founder trustee of Helmsley Arts Centre, a former governor of the Royal Northern College of Music, a trustee of Opera North, and chairman of the Ryedale music festival, and has written and performed in several plays.
Thimon de Jong is an expert in changing human behaviour, societal and cultural trends and the effects they have for businesses and nations. He runs his own think- tank and consultancy delivering strategic insight to all types of organisation, from Morgan Stanley to Land Securities to Microsoft, on the key trends that will affect people - be they customers or employees. He also lectures at the social psychology department of Utrecht University.
Formerly Director of Insight and Strategy at Dutch trends interpretation agency TrendsActive, Thimon looks at the changes in gender, society and demographics to predict what organisations will have to deal with to stay ahead.
Thimon examines how social trends, technology and culture influence human behaviour and how this should influence and inform the behaviour of businesses whether looking at their consumers, their employees or their overall strategy. Working with bespoke research, he incorporates information from a wide range of disciplines. He explores the latest academic research and ways of applying the information to assist client organisations achieve the best in marketing, strategy and product design. Thimon also discusses how society is suffering from a mental health crisis and considers what it reveals about Western culture and modern generations. He looks at how our perception of wellbeing is changing the workplace, as well as possible solutions to the crisis.
Tanni Grey-Thompson rose to become Britain’s most successful Paralympic athlete and its most successful female Paralympian (a title she held for over a decade). In all she collected 11 gold medals, held 30 world records and won the wheelchair section of the London Marathon on six consecutive occasions. Tanni was selected for her first World Wheelchair Games at the age of 18. She won her first Paralympic medal at Seoul, before spinal surgery forced her to take a year away from the track. She stormed back to victory at Barcelona - taking gold at 100, 200, 400 and 800 metres.
In her presentations, Tanni talks about growing up with spina bifida and her decision to become an athlete. She describes the rigourous training regime, the diet and equipment she needed, the choices she had to make and the sheer joy of victory. As with any endeavour, she explains that her success was down to a mixture of planning, teamwork, determination and ambition.
Tanni is a member of the Sports Council, UK Athletics and the Youth Sports Trust and is a regular commentator in print and broadcast media. She also sits on the board of the London Marathon and Transport for London, and has become an active crossbencher in the House of Lords. She continues to work tirelessly in the areas of disability rights, welfare and sport, and was awarded the BBC's Sport's Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement award.
David Smith is Economics Editor of The Sunday Times, as well as the paper’s Assistant Editor and Policy Advisor, and a regular contributor to CBI’s Business Voice. Amongst the first to predict a V-shaped recovery, he was careful to say that it would take time to become discernible.
A widely respected economics commentator, David is the author of several books, including From Boom to Bust, Will Europe Work?, The Age of Instability, and The Dragon and the Elephant: China, India and the New World Order. His most recent work, Free Lunch, is a guide to economics for the lay-person now that it seems essential we all understand the subject.
Before moving to the nation’s most widely read Sunday broadsheet, David worked for The Times and Financial Weekly - as well as the Henley Centre for Forecasting and Lloyds Bank. He has won a number of prizes, including the Harold Wincott Award for Financial Journalist of the Year.
Before establishing himself as anchor of Channel 4 News, Jon served as Diplomatic Editor of ITN, covering summits in Washington and Moscow and numerous other international stories.
Frequently moving out of the studio, Jon reported from Germany when the Berlin Wall came down, and from South Africa when Nelson Mandela walked to freedom. He was also the only British journalist to be granted a full-length interview with Monica Lewinsky.
Jon has occasionally found himself at the centre of a story, whether by refusing to wear a poppy on camera or by criticising the media blackout of Prince Harry’s tour in Afghanistan.
Jon Snow has been named RTS Journalist of the Year, and received a BAFTA for Best Factual Contribution to Television. He is Patron of Prisoners Abroad and President of the Cyclists’ Touring Club.
Multi-storey Warehousing Panel Discussion - The Panel
Amy Gilham is Head of Logistics at Turley and a Director of Economics in our London team. Amy supports a range of industrial and other occupiers to demonstrate the economic and social impacts of developments in London and elsewhere in the country. She has authored reports including What Warehousing Where (British Property Federation – BPF), Delivering the Goods (BPF) and Keep London Working (SEGRO). She sits on the BPFs Industrial Committee and GLA Industrial and Logistics Sounding Board.
Kevin Sims is a founder director of KAM Project Consultants which he established with Mike Wilcock in 2013. In 8 years, the business has grown from start up to 75 colleagues in 5 offices and revenues in excess of £12m substantially focussed on the industrial sector.
Kevin previously worked for Davis Langdon (now known as AECOM) for 27 years, rising from surveyor to board member, a position he held for 7 years. He held a number of key positions in Davis Langdon including Board member for the Middle East business unit where he was based in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
Kevin has successfully managed the delivery of several million sq ft of industrial and distribution developments, ranging from developer led speculative units to complex automated fit outs for third-party logistics requirements across the UK.
Chris has over 20 years practical experience, providing professional architectural design services for UK and international clients. Chris has worked extensively on commercial projects from the project inception concept stage through planning through to project handover of the completed facility to the client. He has extensive experience in the supply of design solutions for large scale facilities within the industrial logistics and distribution sector, commercial office developments and the Waste and Energy sector.
Chris’ primary focus is working with the client to deliver strategic master plans across the UK, with an emphasis on intelligent master planning from a design and commercial perspective.
Chris is involved in design co-ordination and regularly visits sites to liaise with clients, consultants design teams, end users and planning authorities. Through this experience he has developed an appreciation of the differing needs of all the project stakeholders, including developers, end users, contractors and clients. He has undertaken a significant role in the design of award winning master plans and buildings for a wide range of clients and is committed to providing a ‘best in class’ service.
Doug is a Fellow of the RICS first qualifying in 1993. His career has been spent mostly in corporate roles with senior positions at Tesco, Amazon and now as Group Property Director at Wincanton PLC. Large scale real estate programmes, governance and high performing teams are particular areas of interest. His career has taken him throughout Europe with the occasional foray into Global Programme Governance and the mind bending fun of the Indian real estate market.
Jake Huntley is a Partner in the Industrial and Logistics Agency team at DTRE and specialises in landlord advisory in the South of England. The M25 area has been a particular focus in recent years and Jake has advised on several potential multi-storey schemes during this time. Prior to joining DTRE in 2015 Jake worked for 4 years in the logistics team at Capita (formerly Nelson Bakewell/NB Real Estate).
Diversity in the Industrial Sector Panel Discussion - The Panel
Nneka Ejindu is Asset Manager within LaSalle Investment Management’s Asset Management team based in London, primarily focusing on the offices and industrial sectors in the London & South East market. Her key responsibilities include the creation, implementation and coordination of value enhancement strategies across her assets as well as the provision of support to fund managers in the acquisition and disposal of assets, which involves working closely with various external consultants including agency (occupational & investment), development, planning, legal etc. Nneka is also involved in a number of companywide and external projects including the global AUM database, LaSalle Diversity & Inclusion Operating Committee, LaSalle liaison for the JLL Race for Change network, and IAS Women in Industrial Property Committee.
Prior to joining LaSalle in 2009, Nneka started her career at Chesterton, before joining AtisReal (BNPPRE) as a senior team member of the Property Asset Management department working mainly for institutional funds. She then relocated to Pinder Fry & Benjamin to undertake the asset management of commercial property investments within in-house speculative UK-wide office funds.
Nneka holds a BSc (Hons) in Land Management from the University of Reading and is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
David Sleath is CEO of SEGRO, the leading pan-European developer, manager and owner of warehouses and industrial property with assets under management in excess of £20 billion. SEGRO is listed on the London Stock Exchange and Euronext Paris and is a constituent of the FTSE100. By market value, it is the largest publicly-listed REIT in Europe.
David was appointed Chief Executive Officer in 2011 having been Finance Director since 2006. Previously, he was Finance Director of Wagon plc, an international automotive engineering group, and before that he was a Partner at Arthur Andersen.
He is also the senior independent non-executive director of Electrocomponents plc, and a board member of the European Public Real Estate Association and was previously President and a board member of the British Property Federation.
Kelly’s career spanned media, sales and hospitality before she joined the property industry at King Sturge qualifying as a chartered surveyor a few years later as the firm merged with JLL. Whilst at JLL Kelly worked as part of the strategic asset management team, her focus on leasing industrial assets.
A chance meeting with some JLL colleagues at a Freehold LGBTQ+ networking event led to Kelly becoming a founding member of JLL’s LGBTQ+ network Building Pride. As her interest in EDI grew she took the leap and started her business Tigrou Consulting now delivering equality, diversity and inclusion advice and training to companies globally.
Kelly is also the Programme Manager for Changing the Face of Property a collaboration between 12 of the largest real estate consultancies in the UK which aims to accelerate diversity and inclusion across the built environment. She is a Board member of Freehold CIC, the Chair of ULI’s UK’s REDI committee and a member of the ULI’s Executive Committee.
Jane Batchelor is the Career Consultant for Real Estate & Planning in Henley Business School, University of Reading. Being based in the department she has worked with both undergraduate and postgraduate students for the last ten years aiding their personal and professional development. Previous to this role, Jane worked at other educational providers in both post 16 and post 18 institutions, co-ordinating activities for outreach and widening participation. As a passionate advocate for fairness in education & the workplace, Jane is engaged in numerous approaches and initiatives to encourage and build a diverse student body, working with students to build their confidence and successful professional development.
Akhtar Alibhai is a Director in the Industrial and Logistics Agency team at Colliers with a focus on London and the South East. Akhtar undertakes acquisitions, disposals and provides development advice to investors, developers and occupiers of industrial, distribution, and trade counter accommodation. Since joining Colliers in 2004, Akhtar has been a mentor to a number of younger surveyors with diverse backgrounds.
Drinks Reception supported by
