I have been chief executive of CREFC Europe, the trade association
for the European real estate finance market, since 2013. Before that, I spent
five and a half very interesting and enjoyable years at the British Property Federation
as director of policy for finance; I was also finance director and company
secretary supporting the chief executive and the Board, roles that prepared me
for my role at CREFC Europe. The BPF helped me escape from a decade of private
practice as a tax lawyer.
My career was marked by working on the BT 2001 property
outsourcing (real estate has been central ever since), and then by the GFC
(which shaped my time at the BPF and led to my authorship of the 2014 report
"A Vision for Real Estate Finance in the UK"). More recently, efforts
to help the industry be more responsible and sustainable have captured my
imagination.
I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up, but I have a much better
idea now than I did when I graduated (with a degree in modern languages) in
1992!