2026 Speakers

Bradley Baker is Chief Executive of CO—RE with over 35 years’ experience in London’s commercial property market. He specialises in occupier focused design-led development, having advised on landmark transactions including Swiss Re’s acquisition of The Gherkin, Citigroup’s acquisition of 33 Canada Square and M&G’s offices at 10 Fenchurch Avenue. At CO—RE, Bradley leads major office schemes such as the redevelopment of “Vista”at 72 Upper Ground on the South Bank and Blackstone’s new European HQ at Lansdowne House on Berkeley Square.

Joe is Stanhope’s Head of Investment. His job is to help create alignment with our partners and a focus on origination and execution of property transactions.

Since joining Stanhope in 2019 Joe has led on the acquisition of a 525,000 sq ft City of London tower development site (70 Gracechurch Street) and a 300,000 sq ft core plus investment (Building 7, Chiswick Park). Before joining Stanhope Joe was at Alchemy Asset Management, a specialist operating partner focussed on the office sector in London and the South East. He’s especially experienced in the City of London having worked for a number of years as an investment agent at BNP Paribas Real Estate. Joe is a qualified Chartered Surveyor and holds an MSc in Real Estate from the University of Reading and a Business Degree from Durham University.

Tim joined Estates Gazette as deputy editor in July 2019. He became editor in February 2025, coinciding with the magazine's acquisition by Mark Allen Group. Before joining Estates Gazette, he was property editor at Financial News, a Dow Jones publication. Earlier in his career, he wrote for and edited magazines covering capital markets and businesses across developed and emerging economies, including titles at The Economist Group and Thomson Reuters.

Mark Davy is the Founder and CEO of Futurecity and an internationally recognised advocate for culture-led placemaking in the built environment. For three decades he has worked with developers, city authorities and cultural institutions to integrate arts, culture and the creative industries into the planning and design of major urban developments. His work has helped reposition culture as a strategic driver in regeneration, shaping new districts, brownfield transformations and urban centres around the world.

Under his leadership, Futurecity has delivered more than 250 cultural strategies, 20 cultural partnerships and over 200 major art commissions across four continents, contributing to the largest number of public artworks delivered in London’s history. His work has influenced major development projects in cities around the world.

Davy is widely recognised as a pioneer in embedding arts-led and culture-led placemaking within the development process, persuading clients to place culture, creativity and public experience at the centre of city-making. He has also brokered partnerships establishing new homes for major cultural institutions within private-sector developments, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Wembley Park, the Centre Pompidou partnership at Beulah’s South Bank development, the Migration Museum in the City of London, and the English National Ballet at London City Island.

Abigail Dean is the Global Head of Strategic Insights for Nuveen Real Assets. In this role she is responsible for the organisation’s global sustainability, proptech and research functions. The Strategic Insights team work closely with colleagues across investment, product development, compliance, risk and investor relations to ensure that our investment strategies in Real Estate, Infrastructure and Natural Capital are underpinned by an understanding of global megatrends and that sustainability is integrated into fund and asset management.

Since joining Nuveen, Abigail has overseen the organization setting a target for the Real Estate business to achieve Net Zero Carbon by 2040. Abigail is a member of both the Nuveen Real Estate and the Nuveen Real Assets Executive Leadership Team and has spearheaded the integration of sustainability considerations into the investment process. She has also lead the organisation to develop investment guidelines related to physical and transition climate change risk, as set out in the Taskforce on Climate Related Financial Disclosure Framework.

Abigail joined Nuveen Real Estate in 2016. She previously worked at JLL, where she led on sustainability for the Property and Asset Management team in the UK and also held a Director role in JLL’s sustainability consulting team, Upstream.

Abigail is passionate about driving sustainable change in Real Assets Investment and sits on several industry committees and boards including the GRESB Standards Committee and the CRREM Foundation Board. She previously chaired the INREV ESG committee and is also a Better Buildings Partnership Board Member.

Main responsibilities Imogen is Head of UK Real Estate Equity as part of the Aviva Investors Private Markets platform. Her focus is to drive strategy, investment performance and commercialisation across UK client solutions including real estate funds, strategic partnerships, co-invests, segregated mandates and single sector strategies.

Experience and qualifications Imogen has previously held a number of senior roles within Aviva Investors including Head of Strategic Investment and Head of UK Funds where she focused on growth and investment performance across real estate equity funds of ~£10bn AUM. She joined Aviva Investors from Legal and General Investment Management where she was the Senior Asset Manager for LGIM’s long income property funds. Imogen also has property investment experience at Lloyds Bank, Mapeley Estates and consultancy DTZ.

Imogen holds a BA (Hons) in Geography from the University of Leeds and an MA in Property Investment and Development from Nottingham Trent University. She is a member of the Investment Property Forum and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

Emilie is Global Head of Offices at BNP Paribas Asset Management Alts.

In her role, Emilie is driving the business’ global offices strategy, overseeing the active asset management of BNPP AM Alts' European offices portfolio, and ensuring it is continually positioned to meet increasingly demanding occupier requirements and deliver resilient cash flow to its clients. Prior to this, Emilie was Head of Asset Management and Disposals for France overseeing the French portfolio in all sectors.

Emilie joined AXA IM Real Assets in 2011 as an Asset Manager, before becoming Head of Disposals. Emilie began her career at AEW Europe, where she started in acquisitions before becoming an Asset Manager.

She has over 19 years of experience in real estate asset management.

Emilie is a graduate of ESSEC, a leading business school in France

Chris Pilgrim is an Equity Principal at global real estate advisor, Avison Young. He holds a senior leadership position across the global capital markets platform and has deep experience in cross-border capital.

Chris has c. 20-years experience specialising in the deployment of capital into major real estate markets and asset classes across the capital stack. He has spent the majority of his career in London and across APAC including a year in Kuala Lumpur & 8 years in Singapore.

Chris is a strategic leader and has focused driving real estate investment banking practices across his teams. Prior to joining Avison Young, Chris was Managing Director for Global Capital Markets at Colliers both in London and Asia Pacific. He was also Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific Capital Markets across the region for Colliers.

At Colliers, Chris also sat on the APAC Executive Committee. Additionally, he has a decade of experience at CBRE both in London and International Capital Markets teams and latterly as an Executive Director in Global Capital Markets based in Singapore.

He has strong client and capital relationships with Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Canada and Middle East based real estate investors. His client base spans sovereign wealth funds, pensions funds, institutions, private equity, developers and private family offices.

Chris has deep experience advising, structuring and transacting across the risk return spectrum. He has a strong track record in marketing £1b+ single asset trades as well as structuring & marketing corporate merger & acquisition activity. He is a leader in deal origination and deal distribution whilst a specialist in client relationship management ensuring he remains at the forefront of new and first-time capital into major markets. Chris has a depth of knowledge within the sphere of equity raising and equity placement.

Chris is focused on connecting global capital with opportunities across regions and asset classes, in major cities, working collaboratively with teams across the world. He has a unique breadth of global experience and has advised on inter-regional real estate investment on both a direct & indirect basis. He is an expert in large scale real estate investments in EMEA & APAC totalling in excess of $10 billion.

Supported by central and local government, universities and a wide range of regional businesses, the West Midlands Growth Company was established in 2017 to expand existing businesses and attract new inward and capital investment and leisure and business visitors to the region. Its plans are aligned to the ambitions set out in the West Midlands Plan for Growth.

Neil led the trailblazing Business and Tourism Programme for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games; a unique partnership between DCMS, VisitBritain, the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) and the West Midlands Combined Authority. Neil also conceived and led the UK Regional Investment Summit in October 2025, on behalf of the Mayor of the West Midlands, in partnership with His Majesty’s Treasury and DBT.

Previously, Neil held similar economic development and regeneration roles in Liverpool and Newcastle upon Tyne. He is a member of the UK Visitor Economy Advisory Council and a non-executive Board Member of the British Tourist Authority (VisitBritain) and Creative UK. Neil is also a former Governor and Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

As chief executive of the newly formed GMCA group, Caroline Simpson has a role of unique scale and ambition – overseeing the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) and Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM).

Working closely with the city region’s Mayor Andy Burnham and the leaders of its ten councils, Caroline is driving forward efforts to grow the Greater Manchester economy and create good lives for all through a pioneering place-based approach. Her role includes responsibility for a budget of over £1 billion and accountability to almost 2.9 million residents.

Caroline is a proud public servant, who has worked in regional development agencies, the housing sector and local government. Before starting her current role, in June 2024, she was Chief Executive at Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, where she led the £1bn redevelopment of the town centre. Stockport's regeneration has transformed its reputation, with The Sunday Times describing it as ‘one of the most exciting towns around’.

As GMCA group chief executive, Caroline is focussed on unlocking opportunity, strengthening relationships across the city region and empowering all colleagues to deliver for residents. She will lead the GMCA group into a new phase of public service reform, developing locally-driven solutions to some of the biggest policy challenges of our time – from how to tackle health inequality and reduce pressure on the NHS to fixing the housing crisis and getting more people into high quality jobs.

Simon is a highly experienced and respected commercial property expert, with more than 35 years’ experience across the UK and international property markets. He joined BNP Paribas Real Estate UK in March 2013, having previously been a partner at Deloitte.

Simon leads the firm’s National Markets teams, focusing on the delivery of large-scale, innovative mixed-use regeneration projects across the UK. He works closely with government, local authorities, developers, investors and occupiers, and has helped deliver more than £10bn of investment into regional UK markets over the past decade.