Hoare Lea Exploration Podcast Hoare Lea

In this episode, our host Ellie Griffiths hears from The Royal College of Art’s Rama Gheerawo – an inclusive design innovator who has used his skillset to address societal issues around ageing, healthcare, ability and diversity. Together they discuss human-centric healthcare design today and juggling its multiple demands, as well as the importance of healthcare placement, localisation and access, getting comfortable with uncertainty, non-binary thinking and leadership models based around empathy, clarity and creativity.

In this episode, our host Ellie Griffiths chats to Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon – mathematician, computer scientist and co-founder of social enterprise Stemettes – about our sector today and Anne-Marie’s own prodigal trajectory through it, including her road-to-Damascus moment, as well as the labour involved with changing cultures, and enriching the quality of the solution.

In this episode Alex chats to Charlie Blair, of Gravitricity, about the development of a storage technology based on a simple principle: raising and lowering a heavy weight.

Offering some of the best characteristics of lithium batteries and pumped hydro storage, Charlie shares the journey so far for this novel innovation that will enable existing grid infrastructure to go further in a renewable energy world.

We hear from Professor Michele Barbour, the University of Bristol’s Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Innovation – a new role created just six months ago. Following a recent study which has found that the university’s spinout companies generate higher average returns on investment than those of any other UK university, Michele shares her own experience in founding a spinout.

We hear from Vanessa Murray, who founded Mentoring Circle to address the gender diversity gap at the property industry’s senior leadership level – by partnering newly qualified female professionals with top female leaders. The organisation welcomes its second intake on International Women’s Day, 8 March 2022.
Vanessa discusses with Hoare Lea Directors Jo Edwards and Sara Quaglieni their experience of mentoring for the scheme, as well as getting comfortable with not knowing all the answers, and articulating ambitions out loud. Together they talk confidence, reverse mentoring and the importance of symbiotic learning through the next generation, and how we reconcile positive discrimination with a robust meritocracy.

A digital detox is a common new year’s resolution, and the planet needs one on an industrial scale – our everyday internet actions contributing considerably to the climate emergency.
While the huge shift to the virtual plane feels like a good thing – a Zoom meeting is less environmentally harmful than travelling 200 miles to a colleague’s office – it’s all relative. Data centres, which house computer systems and process our digital doings, are responsible for major emissions. At the same time, the pandemic highlighted our need for digital connection, so what can we do to reduce the repercussions? Design differently.
With our sector lead Anders Eklund, the University of Lancaster’s Professor Adrian Friday and Dr Kelly Widdicks discuss their paper assessing carbon accounting in ICT. Together they talk healthier practices, minimising consumer impact, corporate responsibility and the good news story around energy-harnessing ideas in data centre design.