Speakers

 photoAshley.jpg

Gerald Ashley

Gerald worked in international finance in London, Hong Kong and Switzerland. He has since published The Tangled World and Two Speed World, exploring the impact of both explosive and gradual change. In presentations he shows how we misunderstand risks and have too narrow a view of models and decision making. With no perfect solutions and many ‘known unknowns’, we are often influenced by context and instinctive biases rather than rational analysis.


 photoTom2.jpg

Tom Carroll

Tom Carroll is Head of JLL’s Corporate Research team in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Specialising in the provision of insight and strategy support to Corporate Clients, Tom has international experience working with Clients across industries including Deutsche Bank, Microsoft, Allen & Overy, AstraZeneca, UBS, Credit Suisse, Adidas, Honeywell, Sanofi, SAP and Exxon Mobil amongst many others.

Tom leads a number of regional and global research programmes at JLL, and regularly appears at international conferences including CoreNet, Worktech, CBI, smart buildings conference and many others. He has chaired and facilitated a number of panel sessions at CoreNet events in the past on technology transforming real estate, the shared economy and real estate in M&A. Tom regularly appears in the press including the FT, City AM, The Times, International Business Times and New York Times.


photoHelen.jpg

Helen Causer

Helen Causer is responsible for the office asset management at King’s Cross. She has been heavily involved in office leasing including large pre-lets to Havas and Universal Music.

Alongside leasing, Helen focuses on building strong working relationships with her tenants, striving to go above and beyond the traditional landlord and tenant relationship. A hands on approach to asset management is fundamental to this.

Prior to joining Argent Helen was portfolio manager on the Charities Properties Fund within the investment team at Cordea Savills (now Savills Investment Management). There she managed a balanced portfolio spread across the UK focusing on lettings, asset management in addition to investment acquisitions and disposals.

Helen is a member of the RICS, holds a MA in Property Valuation and Law from Cass Business School and a BSc (Hons) in Equine Science from the University of Bristol.


photoCollins.jpg

Gearoid Collins

Gearoid is the Country Managing Director for IWG business in Ireland, where the global workspace provider currently has 15 locations in its 3 main cities.

He is responsible for helping meet the ever growing demand for flexible workspace solutions for companies who are increasingly choosing flexible arrangements as part of their global real estate management.

Prior to leading IWGs operations in Ireland, Gearoid spent several years working in senior domestic and international telecoms business roles with Liberty Global and Virgin Media where he witnessed how fibre rich networks enabled rapid growth of the digital economy.

IWG is the global workspace provider with a reach extending across 107 countries. The company’s network of locations in Ireland currently covers Dublin, Cork and Limerick.


photoDuckworth.jpg

John Duckworth

John is an experienced real estate executive having spent 18 years at JLL where he was a member of the UK Board and, amongst other responsibilities, ran their Corporate Services business. He has built his experience across the EMEA property services market in key roles based in London, Warsaw and Paris.

He has spoken at a number of events including a 2,000 strong audience at a JLL conference, and facilitated a geo-political conference with the British chamber of commerce

More recently, John hosted a panel session at the Bisnow ‘state of the market’ event in London and also moderated an insightful event at Barclays Rise, discussing ‘workspace as a service’. He is well versed in encouraging lively and stimulating debate, ensuring that events are well paced and engaging.


 photoFairburn2.jpg

Carolyn Fairbairn

Carolyn is CBI Director-General. Carolyn joined the CBI as Director-General in November 2015. She spent her early career at McKinsey, before taking on a range of senior leadership roles in the media industry.

As a partner at McKinsey, Carolyn was a leader of the firm’s media practice. As BBC Director of Strategy, she led the BBC’s digital strategy and ran its transmission arm. Carolyn was also a member of the Executive board of ITV for four years.

Carolyn has extensive FTSE board experience as a non-executive director of Lloyds Banking Group, The Vitec Group and Capita plc. She was also a Director of the Competition and Markets Authority, the UK Statistics Authority, and from 2008-11, the Financial Services Authority.

From 1995-97, Carolyn was a member of the Number 10 Policy Unit. She began her career as an economist at the World Bank and then as a journalist for The Economist magazine.

Carolyn holds a double first-class degree in Economics from Cambridge University, an MBA from INSEAD and MA in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania. Carolyn is married with three children and lives in Hampshire.


photoLea.jpg

Ruth Lea CBE

Ruth has been Economic Adviser of the Arbuthnot Banking Group PLC since 2007 and was an independent non-executive director (from 2005 to 2016). She is the author of many papers and articles on economic issues.

She co-founded Global Vision in 2007 and was Director until 2010, and was previously the Director of the Centre for Policy Studies (from 2004 to 2007), Head of the Policy Unit at the Institute of Directors (from 1995 to 2003) and Economics Editor at ITN (from 1994 to 1995). Prior to ITN she was Chief UK Economist at Lehman Brothers, Chief Economist at Mitsubishi Bank, worked for 16 years in the Civil Service (the Treasury, the DTI, the Civil Service College and the Central Statistical Office) and was an economics lecturer at Thames Polytechnic (now the University of Greenwich).


 photoParks.jpg

Richard Parks

Richard is a world record holding extreme environment athlete, having previously been a Welsh international rugby player. His pioneering expeditions and projects have pushed the boundaries of human performance whilst each having a social or charitable impact. He is a Sport Wales Board Member, award-winning author, BAFTA nominated television presenter and Visit Wales ambassador. Richard first made history in 2011, becoming the first ever person to climb the highest mountain on each of the world's 7 continents and stand on all 3 poles (The North Pole, The South Pole and the summit of Everest) within the same calendar year. He completed his world first expedition named The 737 Challenge in under 7 months. A feat which has been recognised by the Guinness World Records and broadcast internationally.

In 2014, Richard became the fastest Briton in history to ski solo and unsupported the from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole, taking 9 days off the previous British record and becoming the first Welshman to complete this iconic 1,240km expedition. His journey was broadcast on Channel 5, the series since shown in over 14 countries.

Richard has been identified as one of Britain’s most promising leaders in his selection for the inaugural Franco-British Young Leaders Programme pioneered by the British and French governments. His current focus is on translating the leadership lessons he has learnt into educational programmes for senior business executives and organisations.

When he’s not flying his Welsh flag in the furthest corners of our planet, he loves cycling, coffee, cooking and movies with his family and friends.


Emily Prideaux

Emily Prideaux

Emily is Head of Leasing at Derwent London and has been with at the company since 2010 and became Head of Leasing in April 2017. Her responsibilities include managing the Leasing Team, advising on and implementing Leasing Strategies across the portfolio, and managing transactions in respect of the Group’s letting activity.


photoToft.jpg

Steven Toft

Steven is an organisational analyst, change leader and programme manager with over 20 years experience in organisational development across across Europe and the Middle-East, in a variety of sectors. Steven is a prolific writer on the labour market and the future of work. Has written for the Guardian, the New Statesman and Prospect and has worked with think-tanks such as RSA and Demos on their research into the changing nature of employment. He is the chair of West London CIPD and a member of the CIPD Policy Forum. Steven started a blog in 2007 about the world of work and won the Editorial Intelligence independent blogger award in 2013 and has been rated No 5 on People Management’s list of the Top 20 social media influencers.


 photoEdwards.jpg

Kirsten Edwards-Warren

Kirsten is an Executive Vice President in Compass Lexecon’s European Competition Policy practice, based in the firm’s London office. She has worked as a professional economist and leadership coach for 17 years, both in consulting and at the UK competition agencies, most recently serving as Director of Economics at both the Office of Fair Trading and at the Competition Commission.

She has extensive experience in mergers, having worked on over 50 cases at the UK competition authorities and DG Comp (EC), in addition to mergers notified in the US, France, Germany and Australia. Kirsten has worked on some of Europe’s most high profile mergers in recent years including GSK/Novartis, DEMB/Mondelez, Publicis/Omnicom, AEG/Wembley Arena, Johnson & Johnson/Synthes, NYSE/Deutsche Börse, Aegean/Olympic Airlines, KLM/Martinair, Microsoft/Skype and Kraft/Cadbury. In addition, she has advised on market studies, consumer cases and competition enforcement cases investigating tying and bundling, excessive pricing, retroactive rebates, refusals to supply, vertical restraints and cartels.

Kirsten is listed in the Who’s Who of Competition Economists 2017 and the Who’s Who of Thought Leaders in Competition 2018. She features in the Global Competition Review Women in Antitrust Survey in 2016 where she is recognised among the top ten female economists in global antitrust. She has a unique perspective on leadership because there are very few other who are trained in economics, accounting and life coaching who are leading regions of professional service firms. She leads EMEA and is on the EMEA leadership team of the parent company FTI Consulting