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Event Host

YY London

YY London

YY London is a 415,000 sq ft building with inspirational workspaces within an elegantly curved form. The project involves the major refurbishment and repositioning of a highly prominent office building in the core of the Canary Wharf Estate. An iconic property in the prime location in Canary Wharf, YY London stands adjacent to the Jubilee Line Underground and Docklands Light Railway entrances and a minute’s walk from the recently opened Elizabeth Line – reducing travel time to City to 6 minutes.

Through infilling an existing atrium, relocating the cores to provide large floorplates with natural light on all sides, increasing the building’s massing and rearranging the ground floor levels to create new entrances to engage pedestrians, YY London delivers 25% more office and retail space while articulating a bold and unique new façade - a striking reimagination of an existing building. The design is targeting the highest sustainability credentials including BREEAM Outstanding and WELL Platinum-ready.

Speakers and Panels

Amy Soar

Amy Soar

Managing Director

Helix

Capital Markets And Investing In The London Office Market

Jon Spencer-Hall

Jon Spencer-Hall

Partner

Core Five

Michael Kovacs

Michael Kovacs

Founding Partner

Castleforge

Alexa Baden-Powell

Alexa Baden-Powell

Head of Investment

GPE

Laure Duhot

Laure Duhot

MD

Hiris Capital

Jenny Harbord

Jenny Harbord

Senior Investment Manager

Art-Invest

William Rabey
Moderator

William Rabey

Head of Client Relations

Colorminium

Jon Spencer-Hall

Partner

Core Five

Jon is a Partner in our London office, specialising in the successful cost management of challenging and complex schemes. He is passionate about using our data and intelligence to achieve each Client’s unique definition of value on every scheme he is involved in.

His recent work at Core Five has included Bankside Yards, a large masterplan scheme for Native Land that encompasses working around significant Network Rail and UKPN assets, and a variety of other projects with Clients including Platform, Sellar, Patrizia, and the Battersea Power Station Development Company.

Prior to joining Core Five Jon worked for Davis Langdon (now AECOM) and was involved in a number of prestigious schemes, including being based at Sellar’s site office on the Shard at London Bridge for four years. He originally graduated from the University of Cambridge, receiving a BA (Hons) and CASM in Mathematics, and subsequently received an MSc in Surveying from the University College of Estate Management.

Jon is part of several initiatives at Core Five dedicated to encouraging diversity in the built environment professions. He was fortunate to join our great industry as a non-cognate himself, and is committed to encouraging access to talent from all backgrounds and creating environments in which they can thrive.

Michael Kovacs

Founding Partner

Castleforge

Michael Kovacs founded Castleforge in 2010. Prior to founding Castleforge, Michael worked at Westbrook Partners in London, where he was involved in transactions for Westbrook’s various funds in the UK, Europe and Asia across a diverse range of real estate investment types. Prior to Westbrook Partners, Michael worked at The Blackstone Group in New York, where he was involved in mergers and acquisitions across a wide range of industry sectors. Michael graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and he currently serves on the University’s UK Europe Leadership Committee.

Alexa Baden-Powell

Head of Investment

GPE

Alexa Baden-Powell is a Senior Investment Manager for GPE, a FTSE 250 Real Estate Investment Trust specialising in investment and development of property in central London. Alexa has also recently been listed as the ‘Investment Innovator’ in BisNow’s list of Power Women changing UK real estate.

Alexa is responsible for driving new acquisitions and sales, including the cycle of deal origination, underwriting, due diligence and transaction execution. Recent projects include, the purchase of the Soho Square Estate (£70m), and the acquisitions of 141 Wardour Street (£39m), 6-10 St Andrew Street (£30m) and 7-15 Gresse Street (£36.5m).

Laure Duhot

MD

Hiris Capital

Laure has 25 years of investment experience across property asset classes. In her last senior executive role, she was Head of Investment and Capital Markets for Europe at Lendlease. Previously, she was a Managing Director at Grainger, Pradera, and Sunrise Senior Living and a founding partner of MCP (now M3CP). In this time, she has closed circa £17 billion of transactions, raising and investing capital around the world. Laure also has 12 years’ prior experience in private equity, investment banking, fixed income and corporate lending; she also has a solid track record as a business angel investor in the proptech sector. Her operating experience has focused on the living sector (affordable housing, PRS, senior living and student housing). Currently, Laure is an acting non-executive director to several businesses including a French company listed on Euronext, a LSE-listed debt fund and two REITs part of the FTSE250 index. She is also serving as the independent member on CBRE-IM’s UK Investment Committee.

Jenny Harbord

Senior Investment Manager

Art-Invest

Jenny is responsible for transactions and funding activities in the UK, overseeing

investment underwriting and capital relationships.

Jenny has over 20 years of investment, development and fund management experience across

the risk spectrum and over multiple sectors including; mixed use, office, residential and retail.

Prior to joining Art-Invest, Jenny worked at Lendlease where she focused on capital

solutions for major London urban regeneration sites including the International Quarter,

Stratford, and Elephant and Castle. She has covered land sales, development JVs, forward

sale/funding, establishment of investment vehicles and been a Fund Manager.

Jenny holds a BSc in Economics from the University of Bristol, a Diploma in Actuarial

Techniques, as well as the FPC and IMC.

William Rabey

Moderator

Colorminium

“William Rabey is Head of Client Relations at Colorminium, London’s leading façade strategists with a delivery capability holding a 46 year reputation in the RE development market on both repositioning and new build schemes. Colorminium’s unique value is held in the ability to deliver comfort and mitigate risk pre-planning and onwards through an initial Optimisation offering, which is now recognised as London’s “go to” process, where investor and developer Clients continue to be faced with increasing market challenges. William holds experience over 10 years in the wider real estate market, including occupier requirements through to construction delivery, where he leads Colorminium’s approach to enabling Clients to ultimately realise best ROI from the facade. Recent Clients he has personally worked with include Clivedale, Native Land, Railpen, FORE, Morgan Capital and many more across multiple forthcoming prime commercial London developments. With a passion to transform a traditional and naturally disjointed approach, he see’s exponential opportunity simply by adopting a new informed approach in the quest for exceptional world class experiential buildings”

Management And Operations: Catering To Employee Needs

CJ Uhure

CJ Uhure

Director of Group Property

Reed

Zac Goodman

Zac Goodman

CEO & Founder

TSP

Tarun Mathur

Tarun Mathur

Director, Offices

Canary Wharf Group plc

Katherine Sanganee

Katherine Sanganee

Head of Concept Development

SAS International

Cristiano Testi

Cristiano Testi

Principal Director

TP Bennett

Chris Garthwaite
Moderator

Chris Garthwaite

CEO

CGA Experience

CJ Uhure

Director of Group Property

Reed

CJ Uhure is an experienced Chartered Surveyor with a demonstrated history of working in multiple property sectors, including retail, telecoms, office and leisure markets. The majority of CJ’s career has been spent working “in-house”, driving value and growth from commercial property portfolios, and delivering property transformation within evolving businesses. Skilled in asset management, acquisitions & disposals, general practise estate management, working with landlords and tenants, real estate transformation, and lease negotiations.

CJ has over 15 years’ experience within the profession. He is Director of Group Property at Reed. Prior to this, he was Head of Property at The Rank Group plc, and prior to that was at CTIL (Vodafone and O2 joint venture) as Regional Estate Manager. He has also worked on the advisory side, advising landlords and occupiers across all asset classes in and around North London.

CJ holds a Master of Science (MSc) focused in Real Estate Development Planning from The University of Reading, a Bachelor of Science (BSc) with Hons in Estate Management from The University of Greenwich and is part of Diversity Talks Real Estate. He is passionate about building positive relationships with landlords and occupiers and helping to promote the RICS to the next generation of Chartered Surveyors.

Zac Goodman

CEO & Founder

TSP

Zac Goodman founded TSP in 2009, having started his career at Goldman Sachs.

Today TSP has close to £5bn AUM, manages 9 million sq ft and has over 80 employees. Zac is in his 18th year as CEO and is still driven by a passion for great people, great design, guided by the belief that the best investments are made in people, and that great people build great businesses.

Beyond TSP, Zac has been an active real estate investor having transacted close to £1bn of real estate including establishing NorthHill a real estate platform.

In 2021, he led TSP to become BCorp accredited, the first company in the UK real estate industry to achieve this certification.

His work has been widely recognised: Zac was named Property Leader of the Year 2025 by Property Week and listed in its Top 40 Under 40.

Outside of work, Zac has won Countdown six times and once cycled 1,000km from Berlin to London in six days.

Katherine Sanganee

Head of Concept Development

SAS International

For over a decade, Katherine Sanganee has championed wellbeing and sustainable practices. Starting her career with Landcare Australia, a grass-roots environmental charity, Katherine has international research and communications experience. This includes work with the Canadian Standards Association in Toronto during the pandemic and five years for Special Acoustic Services (SAS International) in the British manufacturing sector. Recently, she has set up the Concept Development department at SAS with a focus on sustainability and wellbeing in the design of workspaces, schools, and healthcare facilities.

Cristiano Testi

Principal Director

TP Bennett

Cristiano is a Principal Director in the interiors team at tp bennett who enjoys the full spectrum of a project, from inception to completion. He works closely with clients to establish a strong vision, and with consultants and contractors to ensure attention to detail and high-quality delivery. His dedication to excellence led to an invitation to join the national judging panel for the BCO National Awards.

His past project experience ranges from PwC’s HQ refurbishment at Embankment Place, advising Société Générale on its pre-let at One Bank Street before leading the design of the new premises, and working with Frank Gehry on Meta’s campus at King’s Cross.

More recently, he is working with Citi to reimagine their EMEA HQ at 25 Canada Square in Canary Wharf, supporting Linklaters on their move to 20 Ropemaker, and providing ongoing advice to DeepMind. His experience with technology, finance, professional services and legal occupiers as well as leading developers allows him to share insightful solutions with clients in a variety of sectors and disciplines.

Cristiano has been instrumental in developing and reinforcing our relationships with practice partners in the US, East and West Coast, and the Middle East, which have led to projects for PayPal in California, Spotify in Boston, Dubai, London and Amsterdam, and frameworks and opportunities globally.

Cristiano is passionate about the industry. He served as Chair of the BCO NextGen committee, which seeks to develop the next generation of talent, and was recently Chair of the BCO Urban Affairs Group.

Chris Garthwaite

Moderator

CGA Experience

With over 30 years of experience Chris is a widely recognised, leading pioneer of innovative

customer experience solutions in an ever-changing market. Constantly championing the

customer, he has delivered transformation programmes for a range of global organisations.

Always putting the customer at the heart of the business, his visionary approach helps

organisations challenge their status quo and shape their future based on customer insight

and a deeper understanding of the value of customer experience.

London Office Development Spotlight

Michael Wiseman

Michael Wiseman

Head of Office Leasing

British Land

Rowan Jenkins

Rowan Jenkins

Partner

Quadrant

Lara Samworth

Lara Samworth

Leasing Director

Stanhope

Simon Swietochowski

Simon Swietochowski

Development Director

Sellar

Richard Hollingworth

Richard Hollingworth

CEO

M3 Consulting

John Nevin
Moderator

John Nevin

Partner

Slaughter and May

Michael Wiseman

Head of Office Leasing

British Land

Michael Wiseman is Head of Office Leasing at British

Land, leading on engagement with our office customers

across the 7.5m sq ft London portfolio. Mike has been in

this role since 2016 and is responsible for leading the

team in developing and executing leasing strategies,

optimising our office product, and identifying trends to help

us evolve our office strategy.

Prior to this and since joining British Land in 2011,

Rowan Jenkins

Partner

Quadrant

Rowan has broad, major projects experience across retail, residential and commercial sectors.

He started his real estate career in 1993 and gained extensive Construction and Project Management experience over 13 years with LendLease, and subsequently with Laing O'Rourke.

In 2010 Rowan moved into Development Management and has managed the site acquisition, design, planning approvals, sales, leasing and delivery of over 2,000 apartments and associated ground floor retail, as well as in excess of 1.2m sq ft of Commercial Office space.

Lara Samworth

Leasing Director

Stanhope

Lara is a Leasing Director working on commercial projects. Her primary focus is developing a marketing and leasing campaign for each development whilst also being involved in product design and pre-development phases.

Prior to joining Stanhope in 2021 she was a Partner in the London Office Agency team at Knight Frank where she spent seven years providing development consultancy and leasing advice to clients. She qualified as a Chartered Surveyor in 2015, having previously gained an MSc in Real Estate from the University of Reading and a Business Degree from Nottingham University.

Simon Swietochowski

Development Director

Sellar

As a qualified architect with over 20 years’ experience covering a diverse range of sectors both in the UK and internationally, Simon is meticulous in his approach to delivering quality in the built environment. He is passionate about the way we shape the cities around us, and believes in buildings that enable people to flourish, creating low carbon, healthy and inspiring places to inhabit, engage with and enjoy.

He works across the Sellar portfolio, leading on initiatives that explore, tackle, and mitigate some key challenges facing the real estate industry.

Richard Hollingworth

CEO

M3 Consulting

Richard is the CEO of M3 Consulting. Since joining in 2006, he has led large-scale projects for institutional clients and landowners, championing sustainable design and socially responsible strategies. He brings extensive experience delivering complex schemes, tall buildings, and masterplans across commercial, residential, and mixed-use sectors, with a focus on Central London.

John Nevin

Moderator

Slaughter and May

John is a partner in the real estate group at Slaughter and May. He has considerable experience in a wide range of real estate work. He has acted extensively on acquisitions and disposals of all types of property interests, on significant development projects, on major lettings and on the real estate aspects of corporate and financing transactions. His clients include investors, occupiers, developers, livery companies, hotel owners, housebuilders and banks. He is listed as a leading individual in the real estate section of Chambers UK 2025. John is member of the Hall of Fame for corporate occupiers, is recognised as a leading individual for development and as a key lawyer for investment in the commercial property section of Legal 500 2025. He is recognised as a notable practitioner in IFLR1000 2024 and is also listed in Who’s Who Legal: Real Estate 2024.

Also Insight From

Dr Alexandra Dobra-Kiel
Presentation: Belonging In The Workplace An Imperative For The Bottom Line

Dr Alexandra Dobra-Kiel

Innovation & Strategy Director

Behave

Rachael Owens
Presentation: The Crises We Face And Your Role In Building A Better Future

Rachael Owens

Head of Sustainability

Buckley Gray Yeoman

Dr Alexandra Dobra-Kiel

Presentation: Belonging In The Workplace An Imperative For The Bottom Line

Behave

Alexandra is currently Innovation & Strategy Director at Behave where she creates innovative solutions to help clients achieve sustainable growth. Previously, she was the Banking and Capital Markets Insight Lead for Deloitte UK, where she helped financial services companies better prepare for game-changing trends by identifying new corporate and business strategies. Alexandra started her career at Accenture, where, as part of her secondment to Nesta, she helped city governments support innovation and entrepreneurship.

She is a speaker at conferences (Tech & Trends, Women in Finance Online Festival), an author in practitioner journals (CEO Magazine, The European Business Review), an invited expert (Quilter Conference, UK Finance), and a commentator in the media (Euromoney, Financial News). Alexandra holds a PhD from Warwick and a master’s from Cambridge.

Rachael Owens

Presentation: The Crises We Face And Your Role In Building A Better Future

Buckley Gray Yeoman

Rachael heads up Buckley Gray Yeoman’s integrated approach to sustainability. She leads a team of sustainability champions who are embedded in projects across the practice.

A champion of adaptive reuse, Rachael has a wealth of experience in smart retention and enhancement of existing buildings. Recent projects include the design and development of 65 Fleet Street, a 220,000sqft retrofit commercial scheme where 97% of the existing structure is to be retained to dramatically minimise embodied carbon emissions.

Rachael is a WELL accredited professional, a 2021 RIBA journal Rising Star and is part of the Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN), where she coordinates the Climate Literacy Group. Rachael’s work in ACAN includes contribution to the campaign to regulate embodied carbon, which, along with the report ‘The Carbon Footprint of Construction’ that she co-authored, was recognised by the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products Awards in 2021.

She has also guest lectured at University of East London and Kingston University on matters of sustainability in the built environment.

Why This Matters

What You'll Learn:

  • Find out what's keeping investors up at night. How bullish are they about offices given current market conditions?

  • The size and structure of London's office development pipeline.

  • Investor sentiment, and how the rising cost of debt is impacting the sector.

  • Factors of influence in office design, technology and spatial requirements - the trends that are getting tenants excited.

  • Tenants’ priorities when considering new office locations.

How you'll do more business: JLL reported that Central London office investment volumes YTD reached £11.2B by the end of 2023 Q3 vs £8B in the same period last year - a 41% increase. But with the UK predicted to enter a recession, how is the rising cost of debt impacting the market? And as occupiers continued to focus on best-in-class product, with 41% of total space under offer in Q3 2022 pre-let stock and a further 31% newly built/refurbished units, according to JLL, which tenant requirements and office locations are investors’ and developers’ best bet in current conditions? Our expert panellists will share their insights into the future office development pipeline in London, if the office will continue to have a place in the portfolio of investors seeking strong and stable cash flows, and what they're expecting the market to look like for the rest of 2023 and going into 2024.

Bisnow events bring together the UK's most influential commercial real estate investors, owners, developers, lenders, occupiers, consultants and advisors for dynamic and unforgettable content and dedicated networking sessions. With the largest audience of CRE professionals in the world, no one knows how to help your business more than us. As always come early and stay late for ample networking — we'll see you there!

For questions, recommendations, comments, or press enquiries please contact natascha.bhuiyan@bisnow.com

The Rise Initiative

Bisnow is thrilled to announce the launch of The Rise Initiative in the UK, a programme focused on recognising organisations within commercial real estate that are committed to improving racial diversity through quantifiable action. Has your company set specific diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) goals, measured progress against them, keeping accountable to those goals? Learn more and submit your DEI programme to Rise before 24th March.

Venue

YY London

30 South Colonnade

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5EP

Event area: 1st Floor

If you are coming via underground, please use the Jubilee Plaza exit at the Canary Wharf station.


Get Directions

Agenda

Time Activity
2:00 PM
2:40 PM
Registration And Networking
2:40 PM
2:45 PM
Welcome From Bisnow And Quadrant Estates

Tristram Gethin, Founding Partner, Quadrant Estates

2:50 PM
3:30 PM
Capital Markets And Investing In The London Office Market

1. Investing in refurbishment vs. a new building: pros & cons
2. Decision making during market uncertainty
3. Does the office continue to have a place in the portfolio of investors seeking strong and stable cash flows?

3:30 PM
3:40 PM
Presentation: Belonging In The Workplace: An Imperative For The Bottom Line
3:40 PM
3:50 PM
Quick Stretch Break
3:55 PM
4:40 PM
Management And Operations: Catering To Employee Needs

1. Building a space to attract more workers in the office
2. Integrating smart technology in the workplace
3. How are employers catering to employee needs? How does this affect what tenants are looking for?

4:40 PM
4:50 PM
Presentation: The Crises We Face And Your Role In Building A Better Future
4:50 PM
5:25 PM
London Office Development Spotlight

1. Deciding your real estate footprint
2. Strategies in the development process for energy consumption reduction
3. Upcoming development hotspots outside Central London

5:25 PM
6:30 PM
Cocktails, Venue Tours & Networking