Property & Regeneration Lunch 2019

Heather is Director of Sales for Clockwise, a rapidly growing Flexi Office space provider with sites across the UK and Europe. She has advised at 10 Downing Street on how to better support female entrepreneurs and in 2016 was named a Rising Star in the Manchester Young Talent Awards for her work building partnerships to better support fast growth businesses in the Manchester Business community. In 2018, she was named on the Northern Power Women Future List, and in 2019 was awarded “Female Networker of the Year” at the City of Manchester Business Awards and “Employee of the Year” in 2021.

Heather is co-chair of pro-manchester’s Property and Regeneration committee.

Chris was appointed Property Director for MediaCityUK in June 2019, joining Peel L&P to deliver the phase 2 masterplan; to double the estate in size and population over the coming decade, and to asset manage the existing estate, comprising; 14 buildings, over 250 business, 7,500 workers and 2,000 residents.

Before this, Chris was Estate and Property Director at Allied London and was a key member of the team that delivered the final 2 commercial buildings on the Spinningfields estate; The XYZ Building & No 1 Spinningfields, as well overseeing the running of the estate.

Chris’ career started in 2005, following completion of his Property Investment degree at the University of Salford and is proud to return to deliver the evolution of MediaCityUK.

Cym D’Souza became Chief Executive of Arawak Walton HA in 1998. Cym is a qualified Chartered Accountant.

Cym sits on the Strategic Housing Partnerships in Manchester, Trafford and Stockport.

She is Chair of BMENational the umbrella group for over 35 BME housing associations which aims to promote equality and diversity in the provision of housing and support services. It works with the National Housing Federation.

She sits on the advisory group for the NW Housing Forum and the Greater Manchester Housing Providers Partnership.

She has been a member of the GM Police Ethics Committee since 2014.

Andrew is a Director in the Northern Planning team of Turley. He specialises in residential and city centre regeneration schemes, acting on landmark developments across the north west. Andrew has an in depth knowledge of the ‘urban living’ sector and works for a broad client base and collaboratively with the public sector in delivering ground breaking developments across the broad spectrum of urban living. He sits on the British Property Federation’s Build to Rent Committee.

Turley is full service national planning and development consultancy. It has 14 offices across the UK, including a large Manchester office serving clients across the region and acting across a number of sectors.

Suzanne is the head of Trowers & Hamlins’ Manchester office and leads the north west Real Estate practice. She specialises in the development of home ownership products working with Homes England in relation to its grant funded sale products, including the shared ownership lease and most recently the £19 billion Help to Buy programme.

Suzanne also sits on the MHCLG joint advisory committee set up to promote the development of the Build to Rent sector. On a wider basis, Suzanne advises clients on large scale property projects, including public private partnerships and regeneration schemes, Suzanne is also the partner in charge of our Residential Sales team in Manchester. Suzanne is named as a Leading Individual in both Chambers and Partners and the Legal 500. She is also an editorial panel member for ThinkHouse a web based resource to promote knowledge sharing in the housing industry as well as being a business representative on MCC’s Our Manchester Forum.

Siobhan Ryder is the Head of Business Development (North) at ilke Homes. With 14 years’ experience in the Housing sector, Siobhan focuses on developing collaborative partnerships with Housing Associations, Local Authorities, Developers and Consultants to deliver a range of mixed tenure developments, where accelerated construction is a key driver to meeting housing growth targets.

Siobhan is a qualified Chartered Marketer and a mentor for students entering the construction industry. She is an advocate for gender parity and diversity in the workplace and has Social Value at the heart of everything she does.

Tim has been Chief Executive of MIDAS since 2011, having originally joined the company as a Business Development Manager in 2005. MIDAS has a strategic aim to secure significant levels of new investment and employment for the city region. This is achieved through the global business marketing of Manchester, targeting key markets and sectors, and the provision of an extensive, free and confidential package of advice and assistance for location consultants and potential investors. Over the 14 years Tim has been at MIDAS, Greater Manchester has become the most invested UK city outside London, with record results over the last year.

Prior to working at MIDAS, Tim worked in business development in the UK and then as a journalist with the Cape Argus newspaper in Cape Town and the Daily Times in Lahore, Pakistan before joining the Commercial Department of the Foreign Office in India.

Alex has worked in commercial real estate finance for nearly 20 years and is a corporate relationship director at Together. Covering the North West, he is responsible for nurturing existing relationships and widening the specialist lender’s network of corporate clients and advisers as it grows its presence across the UK. A former senior director at Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banking Group, Alex has spent his career in the commercial and corporate real estate sectors, lending on deals of between £25,000 and £200m.

Gerry graduated with a BSc (Hons) from St Andrews University in 1979, holds a post graduate diploma in Marketing from Napier University, a post graduate MBA from Glasgow University and, in 2008, was elected as a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

Gerry has worked in Economic Development and Regeneration since 1984. Most of his early career was spent working in Scottish Enterprise before he became a freelance consultant and, subsequently, an adviser to many Investment Agencies and Government Ministries in Central and Eastern Europe – living, for various periods, in Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

In 2004 he produced a National Brownfield Regeneration Strategy for the Czech Government, involving the development of 5 large brownfield sites on a “best-practice” basis, before joining DTZ plc as their Central and East European (CEE) Regional Director for Consulting.

Gerry returned to Scotland in August 2009 to become a Project Director at Aberdeen City Council, where he was responsible for delivering several major regeneration projects. In 2013 he joined Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council as their Corporate Director for Regeneration Services where he was also responsible for delivering a wide range of other Council services, including planning, highways, transport, neighbourhood and regulatory services.

Gerry returned to consulting in 2016 and, shortly thereafter, accepted an interim role with South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils to produce a development master-plan for Didcot Garden Town and initiate several other major development projects. This assignment lasted over two years, at which point Gerry was invited to take on another interim role at Bolton Council, primarily focussed on the delivery of their Town Centre Regeneration Plan.

In 2018, Gerry accepted a permanent position with Bolton Council, as their Corporate Director of Place, so he could continue to deliver Bolton’s Town Centre Master Plan.