People Property Place

Matthew Watts
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Interviewing the leaders shaping the real estate investment management industry. Hosted by Matthew Watts, Founder of Rockbourne. Join our growing community that sits at the intersection of real estate and media. www.peoplepropertyplace.com

  1. 9h ago

    Joe Lister, CEO at Unite Group - Leading the UK's Biggest Student Landlord Through a Demand Shock

    This episode was recorded on 29th September 2026. Joe Lister is CEO of Unite Group, the UK's largest owner and operator of purpose-built student accommodation. Joe joined Unite in 2002 from PwC's corporate finance team, when the business had 3,000 beds. He spent 15 years as CFO before taking over as CEO. He tells Matthew Watts how Unite helped turn student accommodation into an institutional asset class, and about the decision to waive £100m of rent when students were sent home during Covid. Joe explains the demand shock of the last 18 months. Visa changes cut the number of international postgraduate students, and more students at low-tariff universities chose to live at home. Occupancy fell from 97-98% to 95%, and investors asked why Unite hadn't seen it coming. He sets out the plan to sell around 15,000 beds, reduce from 29 cities to around 20, and move into second and third year housing through Hello Student. The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Art Capital & Yardi. For more on Yardi, head to: https://hubs.li/Q04wHxlH0 For more on Art Capital, head to: https://www.art-capital.co.uk/ LIKE - SHARE - SUBSCRIBE http://peoplepropertyplace.com/

    Joe Lister, CEO at Unite Group - Leading the UK's Biggest Student Landlord Through a Demand Shock

  2. Oct 4

    Gabriela Hersham, CEO at Huckletree - People Want Lifestyle Buildings, Not Office Buildings

    Gabriela Hersham didn't set out to work in property. She studied international business with French and Spanish, then moved to New York to study acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute before moving into producing. Working out of an early WeWork gave her the idea, and when she moved back to London she set out to build the same kind of space. She grew up in a real estate family - her father, Gary Hersham of Beauchamp Estates, has been a guest on the show - and she credits her parents with her work ethic more than any knowledge of property. Getting Huckletree from idea to its first building took three years. She raised a seed round of around £300,000 before she had a site, then spent close to a year unable to secure a lease, because she had no covenant and many landlords didn't want flexible workspace in their buildings. The first space was 2,400 sq ft in Clerkenwell, with 40 desks and one meeting room. Early on she also gave equity to a friend who helped her raise money but was never going to be operational in the business. She wouldn't do it again, because you never get that equity back. Today Huckletree is a 50-person business with a quarter of a million square feet and more than 5,000 members, including spaces at 8 Bishopsgate and 40 Leadenhall. Gabriela's argument is that the market has moved heavily in the operators' favour. Landlords now fund the fit-out and offer management agreements, enterprise businesses treat flex as central to their workspace strategy, and occupiers sign up for 24 or 36 months, paying more than £1,000 a desk in some locations. What they're paying for is the building itself. In her words, people don't want to go to an office building anymore, they want to go to a lifestyle building. She also talks about building a team, firing quickly when someone isn't working out, and running a business as the primary caregiver for her children. The conversation was recorded while she was on maternity leave. The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Art Capital & Yardi. For more on Yardi, head to: https://hubs.li/Q04wHxlH0 For more on Art Capital, head to: https://www.art-capital.co.uk/ LIKE - SHARE - SUBSCRIBE http://peoplepropertyplace.com/

    Gabriela Hersham, CEO at Huckletree - People Want Lifestyle Buildings, Not Office Buildings

  3. Sep 27

    Jack Palmer, Managing Director at PTSP - Two Phone Calls From Any Decision Maker in Asia

    Jack Palmer left school at 17 with his A-levels unfinished, supported by his dad and rather less so by his mum. He started out as an art handler at Christie's, working in the house sales department, photographing and cataloguing the contents of stately homes for a week or two at a time. At 19 he went back to Hong Kong, where he'd lived until he was eight, with the intention of getting into real estate. He spent years there building a network of family offices, first in an international role selling London property into Asian buyers, then moving into domestic commercial office leasing and transactions. At 25 or 26 he left the security of a larger firm and spent eight months from early 2019 writing a strategy for what became his own business, built on a simple observation: plenty of capital still wanted London commercial, plenty of managers operated there, but very few had a genuine Asia-centric focus. He partnered with Christopher, who had 35 years in the central London market, so the business had someone in Asia dedicated to private capital and someone in London executing the business plan. Seven years on, Palmer Tabor Properties runs assets in London and Australia with teams across London, Hong Kong, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Zac Goodman's TSP has now taken a 50% stake in the business, which trades as PTSP. Jack's argument about Asian capital is that the British misread it. The decision makers in the Far East are dealmakers in their own right, many of whom built their wealth being inquisitive and curious, and his theory is that you're only ever two phone calls from the person who actually decides. Getting in front of them isn't easy, but it's easier than most people assume. What they're judging you on once you're there is track record: they're looking for problem solvers who bring results. He's also open about what that costs. Around 63 flights last year, and the strain an international business puts on relationships and friendships. The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Art Capital & Yardi. For more on Yardi, head to: https://hubs.li/Q04wHxlH0 For more on Art Capital, head to: https://www.art-capital.co.uk/ LIKE - SHARE - SUBSCRIBE http://peoplepropertyplace.com/

    Jack Palmer, Managing Director at PTSP - Two Phone Calls From Any Decision Maker in Asia

  4. Sep 20

    Alex Price, Chief Executive at Ashen Capital - Character Matters More Than Skill When Backing a Founder

    Alex Price started his career as an officer in the British Army, moved into investment banking, did an MBA at London Business School, and joined Palmer Capital in 2003. At that point the business had three or four people, a balance sheet under £1m, no funds under management and three operating partners. Over 16 years he built it alongside founder Ray Palmer into a business with more than £1bn of assets under management, having raised over £1.5bn from the UK, US, Middle East and Asia, employing nearly 100 people across ten operating partners. They sold to Fiera Capital in 2019, and Alex went on to run the combined European business before leaving in 2023 to study a masters at King's College London. He set up Ashen Capital in 2024 with Steven Wright, a colleague of 15 years, to invest in the people investing in property. They take minority stakes in UK operating businesses, providing up to £5m of working capital alongside advice, connections and experience. Two investments so far: a land promotion business and an investment management business doing senior secured construction loans. His argument in this conversation is about what separates a real estate entrepreneur from any other kind. In most startups you risk a laptop, an office and your reputation. In real estate the numbers are staggering, so the downside is far larger relative to the upside, and that changes what investors look for. Alex backs character before skill set, because trust is what he's actually underwriting. He also never backs a solo founder, wanting two complementary people so one drives and one reduces risk. He walks through the mindset, skill set and character he looks for, the six steps to launching a business from concept through to launch day, and why he'd put £500m into UK residential rather than commercial. The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Art Capital & Yardi. For more on Yardi, head to: https://hubs.li/Q04wHxlH0 For more on Art Capital, head to: https://www.art-capital.co.uk/ LIKE - SHARE - SUBSCRIBE http://peoplepropertyplace.com/

    Alex Price, Chief Executive at Ashen Capital - Character Matters More Than Skill When Backing a Founder

  5. Sep 13

    Guy Butler, Co-Founder at Glenbrook - The Risks You Care About Aren't the Ones Investors Do

    Guy Butler grew up in a poor village in the Welsh valleys, the son of a butcher who understood the local property market better than he understood meat. He studied surveying at Reading, left an early consultancy role to co-found the planning and development boutique Turnberry Consulting in 1998, on the single condition that his name wasn't in the company name, and joined Grosvenor before he'd even qualified as a chartered surveyor. At Grosvenor he worked on major shopping centre developments, including a £330m scheme in Basingstoke, and built the relationships and reputation that gave him the confidence to go out on his own. He co-founded Glenbrook with former colleague Ian, setting the business up on £12,500 each while everyone else worked for favours and goodwill. Their first project took 14 months from start to finish, but by the time it was funded, Manchester had woken up to build-to-rent and sites became far harder to find. The Brexit vote in 2016 then cost the business roughly £2m in changed terms on a deal already in motion, right as they were trying to fund their first new-build scheme. Guy's central argument in this conversation is about risk. Developers tend to focus on the risks they understand best, things like rights of light or site access, and assume institutional funders share that focus. In reality, the risks that actually move capital are the ones outside the site altogether: where the bond market sits, the cost of debt, and what the entry and exit terms look like. Understanding an investor's risk tolerance, not just your own, is what actually gets a scheme funded. The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Art Capital & Yardi. For more on Yardi, head to: https://hubs.li/Q04wHxlH0 For more on Art Capital, head to: www.art-capital.co.uk/  LIKE - SHARE - SUBSCRIBE http://peoplepropertyplace.com/

    Guy Butler, Co-Founder at Glenbrook - The Risks You Care About Aren't the Ones Investors Do

  6. Sep 7

    Tim Robinson, Head of Commercial at Knight Frank - 32 Years of Results Lead to the Job of a Lifetime

    Tim Robinson joined Knight Frank as a graduate and has spent the whole of his 32-year career there, becoming an equity partner in 2008 and Head of Commercial in 2025. In April, he takes over as UK Managing Partner from Stephen Clifton, a role that will bring the firm's residential and commercial businesses together under one leader for the first time. His path started a long way from property. His father was an army colonel who wanted him to follow the same route, and Tim grew up moving between postings before boarding at Harrow from the age of six. He went into real estate instead, working his way up through agency roles at Knight Frank before taking on the property management, valuation, planning, business rates and building consultancy divisions in turn. He's candid about the timing of the new role. He'd assumed Head of Commercial would be his job until 60, and had committed to it fully, before Stephen Clifton told him a year in that he planned to leave and asked if Tim wanted to put himself forward. Taking over means running a residential business for the first time in his career, and merging two divisions that have operated largely independently to avoid duplicated costs and missed opportunities for clients. He also talks through how the partnership actually works, from the profit-sharing model to how someone becomes an equity partner, and where he'd allocate £500m of capital if he had it today, split across new talent, rural real estate and infrastructure. What guests would you love to see next on PPP? Let us know in the comments. The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Art Capital & Yardi. For more on Yardi, head to: https://hubs.li/Q04wHxlH0 For more on Art Capital, head to: www.art-capital.co.uk/ LIKE - SHARE - SUBSCRIBE http://peoplepropertyplace.com/

    Tim Robinson, Head of Commercial at Knight Frank - 32 Years of Results Lead to the Job of a Lifetime

  7. Aug 30

    Allan Lockhart, CEO at NewRiver REIT - Retail Was a Dirty Word but Now It's the Top Performer.

    Allan Lockhart never went to university. He left school for a graduate broking scheme in the City, spent a few years as an oil and gas liability broker in the Lloyd's of London building, and decided it wasn't for him because it felt intangible. A knee injury three weeks before a round-the-world trip changed his plans, and he took a job at the bottom of Strutt & Parker's retail team instead, opening the post and making the coffee. He stayed 14 years, working leasing, development and capital advisory, before joining his father's business, Halladale, to set up its London office in 2000. Halladale listed on AIM in 2001 and sold to a large Australian REIT in early 2007 for around £170m, just months before the financial crisis hit. Allan and his father then founded NewRiver later that year, betting that the UK REIT market would follow the US model into sector specialisation. The years since have tested that bet. Retail spent the best part of a decade written off as a dying sector, hit hard by the rise of online shopping and then by Covid. Allan's argument is that the winners in online retail turned out to be the omnichannel operators - retailers like Next and Marks & Spencer who use their stores to fulfil online orders - rather than the pure online players, and that's driven demand for physical space back up while supply has kept tightening. NewRiver leaned into that rather than chasing the shift into logistics that much of the market made, built out its research and data capability, and is now one of the best-performing listed real estate stocks in the UK. He's also candid about lessons learned. Ten years ago he was too focused on the detail of individual assets and not focused enough on the macro, and today he watches gilt yields move on the back of geopolitical headlines as closely as anything happening inside his own portfolio. What guests would you love to see next on PPP? Let us know in the comments. The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers. LIKE - SHARE - SUBSCRIBE http://peoplepropertyplace.com/

    Allan Lockhart, CEO at NewRiver REIT - Retail Was a Dirty Word but Now It's the Top Performer.

  8. Aug 24

    Roun Barry, CEO at ESR Europe - From an MBO in 1996 to a $100bn Global Platform

    Roun Barry moved to the UK from South Africa in 1986, aged 26, using the trip as both a career test and an act of defiance against the politics of the time. He trained as a lawyer but went into real estate instead, working as a partner at Jones Lang Wootton and then running the UK portfolio at ING Real Estate. In 1996, he led a management buyout of the Dunedin business from ING, backed by the Royal Bank of Scotland. The business grew, and by 2006 he had built roughly £700m of industrial property, all backed by RBS money, and completed what was at the time the largest private CMBS in the market, a £640m deal. Then the GFC hit. As interest rates rose and values fell, Roun made the call to warn the 200 bondholders holding the CMBS that there was a problem, hoping to work through it together. Almost none of them understood the underlying industrial estates the debt was secured against, no one could agree on a solution, and the structure went into administration. He calls it the biggest mistake of his career. In hindsight, he says he has no regret, because it cleared the decks while many of his contemporaries spent years tied up in negotiations with banks. He rebuilt from a blank sheet of paper between 2010 and 2016, got back to roughly £1bn of assets under management, and sold the industrial portfolio to Blackstone. From there he joined ARA Europe in 2018 in a joint venture that combined his local expertise with ARA's access to international capital. ARA later merged with ESR, and Roun now runs ESR Europe as part of one of the largest real estate investment managers in the world. The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers. LIKE - SHARE - SUBSCRIBE http://peoplepropertyplace.com/

    Roun Barry, CEO at ESR Europe - From an MBO in 1996 to a $100bn Global Platform
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Interviewing the leaders shaping the real estate investment management industry. Hosted by Matthew Watts, Founder of Rockbourne. Join our growing community that sits at the intersection of real estate and media. www.peoplepropertyplace.com

Information

  • Creator
    Matthew Watts
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    199
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2022
  • Show Website
    People Property Place

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