The Progress 1000: London's most influential people 2019 – Business: Property

Roger Madelin
Daniel Lynch
Janice Morley6 October 2019

Roger Madelin​

Head of Canada Water development
Madelin is a true visionary and one of the driving forces behind the regeneration of King’s Cross. He walks and cycles London to feel its vibe. Instead of winding down after King’s Cross, he was asked to take on Canada Water and submit the largest planning applications in the history of London, converting 53 acres of old docklands into a £3 billion new world. He plans acres of green space, walkways and cycle paths by the Thames in a mixed use scheme to encourage health and wellbeing.

Brendan Sarsfield

Chief executive of Peabody | NEW
Sarsfield trained as a civil engineer, spent his life in domestic property and took over this 150-year-old social housing charity in 2017. Peabody now own 66,000 homes across London and the South East, creating safe and affordable homes for working people. Their community programmes, building schemes and passionate concern for the wellbeing of Londoners is well documented but can never be praised enough.

Deborah Saunt​

(Adrian Lourie)
Adrian Lourie

Architect and founder of DSDHA
With her husband David Hills, whom she met at Cambridge, Saunt is responsible for changing the look of significant chunks of London for the better with her head-turning architecture. Memorable is the flat-iron building on the corner of South Molton and Davis Streets. She is both an educator and lecturer and believes her work should be “serious fun” — and that even the smallest changes should make an impact for the better.

Roger Zogolovitch

Founder and creative director of Solidspace and independent developer | NEW
An architect for more than 40 years, Zogolovitch definitely thinks outside of the box, having built many homes across London with striking surface texture and shapes. He must have been a planner’s nightmare but London is better off for having him. An author, lecturer and independent developer, he continues to push the boundaries.

Darren Rodwell

Leader of Barking and Dagenham council | NEW
Rodwell is the personification of enthusiasm. He is Barking-born, with a vision to make this big and complicated place London’s best borough. Passionate about Barking’s 20-year regeneration programme to transform an area of 443 acres, creating a new town with 11,000 new homes along the Thames and turning the wetlands into an ecology centre. He oversees one of the most important growth opportunities in London.

Iain Kennedy

Head of marketing, Rightmove
Kennedy is the dynamic marketing head of Rightmove, the UK’s largest property website which attracts more than 130 million visits from home- movers every month. Established in 2000, its users now spend more than a billion minutes a month looking at property on this site. Kennedy’s aim is to dominate the UK property market, and be a friend to all frustrated home-searchers.

Jace Tyrell

CEO of the New West End Company
Tireless and charming, Tyrell set out to make the West End and Mayfair the world’s top shopping and leisure destination. His patch is the golden triangle of the West End with its 25 streets and destination shopping empire that encompasses Bond Street, Regent Street and Oxford Street. For both tourists and Londoners in love with luxury brands, Tyrell is determined to make this area their first shopping choice.

Peter Murray

Chairman of the New London Architecture
Murray studied architecture and as a journalist and commentator he has turned his passion for a better built environment into a lifelong campaign. Through the NLA, he has established a coveted annual awards ceremony at the Guildhall for architects, while the well-established annual London Festival of Architecture showcases 500 events across the city. A keen cyclist, he energetically explores London looking at buildings, concluding that the capital is easier to navigate, healthier, cleaner and a quieter place than when he came here 50 years ago.

Patricia Brown

Founder and director of Central | NEW
Brown’s niche consultancy Central focuses on the dynamics and process of achieving positive change. She has acted behind the scenes to shape major developments across London and is a watchdog for regeneration.

Professor Tony Travers

Author, journalist, academic, director of LSE London | NEW
Travers is the go-to man for comment on the intricate web and bureaucratic process of running London — through its boroughs, councils and beyond. His opinion is sought after by our policymakers and he has sat on enough think tanks to turn him into a saint. Quiet, considered and reliable, Travers has more of a sense of humour than any academic specialising in local government has a right to possess.

Finn Williams

Co-founder and CEO of Public Practice | NEW
Professor, architect and enthusiast making waves by placing talented architects and planners into local authorities so we all benefit from better buildings. Williams’s company is a social enterprise built up by the shared belief of him and his friends. He did his time in the public sector with Croydon council and with the GLA and now tutors at universities and sits on anything where he thinks he will educate influencers to understand the value of good place making.

Helen Gordon

Chief executive of Grainger | NEW
Grainger is the UK’s largest private residential landlord and Gordon, 59, says there has been a sea change in renting — many young Londoners prefer it... “They rent phones, homes, cars, music. It is their culture to rent.” Seven million households are expected to be renting by the middle of the next decade.

Tony Pidgley

Berkley Homes Chief Executive Rob Perrins and Chairman Tony Pidgley
Justin Sutcliffe/Polaris

Chairman and founder of the Berkeley Group | NEW
Pidgley left school at 15 and today is the multi-millionaire founder of one of the country’s largest house building companies. The 71-year-old has built his empire mostly in London and the Home Counties. An astute businessman who can read the market like a book, in recent years he’s taken on interesting projects including transforming London’s dysfunctional housing estates. Woodbury Down in Hackney is a prime example of successful inner city regeneration.

Craig McWilliams

Chief executive of the Grosvenor Estate | NEW
McWilliams is a Cambridge-educated chartered surveyor, who married a surveyor and is now custodian to one of the wealthiest estates in the UK — the Grosvenor empire. It extends across Mayfair and Belgravia and McWilliams is busy creating business opportunities for small, independent shops. Oxford Street is a challenge but he is keen to keep smart shoppers on his streets and has poured money into restructuring the Bond Street area in preparation for Crossrail business — when it happens. Grosvenor is even crossing the river to take part in the £500 million masterplan for the old Peek Freans factory in Bermondsey.

Martin Waller

Founder of Andrew Martin and the International Interior Design Awards | NEW
At the forefront of global design and founder of the Oscars of design awards... Waller’s annual ceremony is attended by a heady brew of global interior decorators. His exotic shop of treasures displays furniture and fabrics from across the world and has been a landmark store in Chelsea’s Walton Street for years. A constant traveller and explorer, Waller’s talent and acumen as a businessman encourages British creativity in the interior design world.

Claire German

MD of the Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour | NEW
German came from glossy magazine publishing to be appointed MD of Europe’s premier and largest design centre. She now looks after 600 brands in 120 showrooms and annually hosts multiple events including The Design Festival. German is a big flag waver for English craftsmen and women. The Design Centre attracts tens of thousands of home-owners, professional interior decorators and architects from across the world eager to discover the latest interior trends in this fabulous showcase.

Colette O’Shea

PR handout

Managing director, London portfolio, Land Securities
Said to be the most powerful female property developer in London, O’Shea is responsible for overseeing a staggering £7.8 billion portfolio. She headed a three million sq ft development programme of London and the West End which included the £2 billion transformation of Victoria, as Landsec turned it into a world-class 10-acre city quarter.

The Progress 1000, in partnership with the global bank Citi, is the Evening Standard’s celebration of the people changing London’s future for the better. #Progress1000

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