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.

Finn heads the investment function at Native Land which he joined in 2018. He is responsible for sourcing and managing equity and debt partnerships across Native Land’s mixed-use development portfolio as well as identifying new land acquisitions in London. Prior to Native Land, Finn spent eight years with the Jardine Matheson Group in Asia where he was the country head of Hongkong Land in the Philippines and oversaw developments in Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Finn graduated from Oxford in 2006 and qualified as a management accountant in 2011.

John has held senior positions in finance, investment and corporate governance for over 25 years.

Over the past 20 years he has focussed on real estate investment and has been instrumental in

financing transformational regeneration projects across the UK through roles at igloo Regeneration

and Thriving Investments (formerly PfP Capital and part of Places for People).

He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte and moved to corporate finance at PWC before

working in corporate governance at Thorntons PLC and Bass PLC and becoming Finance Director for

the East Midlands Development Agency leading a £250m economic development annual investment

programme. After a period at GVA advising UK cities on how to attract private sector investment,

John joined Thriving Investments in 2018 as Finance and Investment director and works on

establishing new funds with public and private sector investment.

Jessica is an Investment Director, based in London, responsible for supporting the UK real estate business and its growth. She joined Schroders in 2012 and was formerly the Fund Manager of the Schroder UK Real Estate Fund until September 2023, prior to that she was Head of UK Retail at Schroders from 2014 to 2017, and was an Investment Manager between 2012 to 2014. She has over 18 years of real estate experience.

Tom is an Investment Director within the Investment Team and is responsible for deal origination across Europe having joined Henley in 2019. Prior to Henley, Tom spent seven years at Catalyst Capital, a pan-European investment fund focused on cross sector real estate. Tom has been involved in transactions totalling in excess of £1bn across all asset classes, including developments and loan to own strategies. Tom holds an MSc in Real Estate Investment from Henley Business School.

12 years experience, with Henley since 2019

Zoe is Head of Real Estate for Evelyn Partners and prior to joining Evelyn Partners, Zoe was a Corporate Tax Partner at EY for 9 years and before that she was at Deloitte for 10 years. She has over 27 years’ experience in the provision of domestic and international corporate tax advice, fund structuring and M&A transactions, with a specific focus on the Real Estate & Construction.

Zoe advises on tax matters arising from tax compliance and reporting as well as projects including providing due diligence and tax structuring advice on transactions. Zoe has considerable experience in both tax technical and commercial issues ranging from running complex domestic transactions to leading cross border deals which involved liaising and project managing over 25 offices globally. Zoe’s clients include British Land, Canary Wharf, Carpetright, Clifton College, Darwin Alternative Funds, Grosvenor Estates, John Lewis, Monex Europe and Native Land. Zoe has also been the Tax Audit partner on a number of FTSE 100 and 250 audits, including J Sainsbury plc, John Laing plc, Serco Group plc.

Jason has extensive experience on real estate ownership

structures taking into consideration the tax profile of the

investors, the nature of the asset and the investment

strategy. He advises his clients throughout all aspects of the

real estate ownership lifecycle, from acquisition to exit,

looking at UK direct taxes, VAT, stamp taxes, transfer

pricing, capital allowances, and international taxes.

Jason has a particular focus on UK and pan-European Real

Estate M&A and the tax services required by investors in

connection with the acquisition of entities owning real

estate, including financial and tax due diligence, tax

structuring, SPA advice and tax forecasting / modelling.

Jason works closely with real estate funds and investment

managers and advises them on particular tax issues

pertaining to them and their investors.

Jason is also a Stamp Taxes specialist and has extensive

experience advising clients on matters in relation to SDLT.