Shaping Tomorrow’s Places

Monday 15th September at Arding & Hobbs, London

As the needs of our communities, customers, and cities continue to evolve, so must the spaces we create. This year’s conference – Shaping Tomorrow’s Places – brings together placemakers, investors, retailers, and visionaries to explore how we design, invest in, and activate places that are not just fit for the future, but resilient, relevant, and people-focused.

From unlocking hidden value in existing assets, to human-centred design, to the role of AI and inclusive placemaking – these sessions will delve into the ideas, innovations, and partnerships driving meaningful change across the retail, leisure, and built environment sectors.

Let’s shape what’s next – together.

Dan Parr, Senior Vice President at CACI

As Vice President at CACI Ltd, Dan brings over 20 years of experience in helping companies place customer understanding at the core of their operations. He leads a team of data and analytics experts who deliver market-leading data services, software, and consultancy tailored to clients’ needs for customer insight. Dan thrives on building long-term, collaborative relationships with customers, gaining a deep understanding of their business challenges and aspirations, and delivering innovative, actionable solutions that strengthen their competitive edge.

Dan Labbad, Chief Executive of The Crown Estate

Dan Labbad was appointed to Chief Executive of The Crown Estate in December 2019. The Crown Estate is an independent commercial business set up to act in the long-term national interest and returning all its profit to UK Government. This has totalled over £4 billion in the last ten years. Prior to The Crown Estate, Dan held a number of senior positions at the global property and infrastructure group Lendlease, including Group Chief Operating Officer and the dual roles of Chief Executive Officer, International Operations and Chief Executive Officer, Europe. Dan has actively championed sustainability and technology throughout his professional life, having previously served as a director of the Green Building Council of Australia and as Chairman of the UK Green Building Council. In addition to his role at The Crown Estate, Dan is a non-executive director of Raspberry Pi Holdings plc.

Alasdair McClimont, Customer Manager at The Crown Estate 

Alasdair McClimont has over 15 years of experience managing flagship retail stores for prominent brands such as Topshop/Topman and Vision Express in major retail destinations across the South East. He joined The Crown Estate in 2022 to launch its performance support offer for Regent Street and St James’s retail and hospitality brands. In 2023 he also became responsible for the Customer Performance Support approach for The Crown Estate’s national Retail and Hospitality portfolio, working with their managing agent.

Dan Mason, Managing Director at Multi-Realm

Dan is a Chartered Surveyor with over 30 years’ experience in the retail and leisure property industry. Having worked for listed property company MEPC and real estate consultancies in London, in 2001 he co-founded Realm – a leading operator of retail and leisure destinations and designer outlets. In 2024 Realm was acquired by Multi Corporation, a pan-European platform for integrated real estate management services, and was renamed Multi-Realm. Multi-Realm’s experienced team of retail, property and financial professionals have extensive experience in operational property, and an unrivalled network of contacts across the retail, food, and beverage occupier markets. In his role as Co-Owner and Managing Director, Dan is responsible for all aspects of company strategy and operations, new business initiatives, client and corporate management, as well as development activity, large-scale asset management initiatives, and capital projects across the portfolio. Multi-Realm is proud to be a B Corp business which demonstrates its commitment to a very high level of employee, environmental and social responsibility. Multi-Realm’s current portfolio includes London Designer Outlet, Wembley Park, Lakeside Village in Doncaster, Ringsted Outlet in Denmark, Resorts World Birmingham and Cotswold Designer Outlet, which is opening Summer 2025.

Tom Jamson, Partner, KLM Real Estate

Tom is a partner at KLM Real Estate, a leading boutique property consultancy providing agency, investment, and lease advisory services across the UK and internationally. For 15 years he has specialised in retail agency and has extensive experience across the high street, shopping centre, and designer outlet sectors. Current high street projects include The Crown Estate’s central London portfolio, and South Kensington Estates’ retail and hospitality portfolio, whilst outlets include Outlet Shopping at The O2, and The Boulevard in Northern Ireland.

Tarah Gear, Director of Brand & Place Futures, Milligan

For over 18 years, Tarah has developed big brands and destinations across venues, real estate, retail and leisure with a special focus on technology and customer experience. At Milligan, Tarah leads strategic brand development for the places we create, aligning customer needs, stakeholder interests and purpose. Tarah is also responsible for managing various brand, creative and comms specialists at each stage of a project from pre-planning to developing narratives, commercial engagement strategies and media relationships. Tarah’s role marries brand with purpose as she heads up our corporate ESG strategies, holding our commitments to account and leading input from specialist consultants and thinkers across our work. In a previous role at Milligan, Tarah led the onsite marketing at Birmingham’s Mailbox working alongside its tenants (retail, F&B and hotels) to maintain footfall during its extensive redevelopment and lay the foundations for its Smart App alongside technology partners. Tarah has also held senior roles at The NEC Group including sales and marketing director for the Group’s ecommerce and data division and at the Ricoh Arena and Wasps Rugby.

Robert Insley, Leading Retail Operations, Bloobloom

With nearly 30 years in the optical sector, Rob has worked with teams to open stores and warehouses across evolving high streets and shopping centres. Together, they’ve navigated shifting customer expectations, the challenge of finding the right locations, and the ever changing landlord relationships both pre and post Covid’.

Cat White, Planning Director at Turley

Paul Sargent, Founder & CEO of Queensberry

Sascha Lewin, CEO of W.RE

James Cons, Managing Director of Leslie Jones Architecture

Marc Myers, Retail Operations Director, Outlets, Central London, Suburban London and Retail Parks at Landsec

Mike Adams OBE, Creator & Founder at Purple Tuesday

As the Creator, Founder, CEO and a disabled customer Purple Tuesday is my passion. It is part of a need to change the disability conversation. And to support organisations to be confident in putting in place accessibility solutions to improve the experience of disabled customers and employees. Disability is a commercial and social impact game changer. The Purple Tuesday Team will support you to play a great game to enable all disabled people. In my view, disability holds immense significance because inclusivity is not just a choice but an essential human right that should be extended to all.

Hanna Afolabi, Managing Director of Mood and Space

As a planning and development surveyor and holder of a BA (Hons) in architecture, she is passionate about the built environment and ensuring that people come first in the process. In her most recent role prior to setting up MAS, Hanna was a Development Director for Balfour Beatty Investments seconded into East Wick and Sweetwater Ltd a joint venture with Places for People. She lead on the feasibility, business planning, budget, design, programming and planning of the mixed-use regeneration project of c.1,900 homes on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. She has worked on other notable projects in London, including Hallsville Quarter in Canning Town and Borough Triangle in Elephant and Castle. Hanna also founded Black Women in Real Estate (BWRE) an organisation that brings together black women in property with the intent for them to connect. 

Mark Rebbeck, Co-Founder of Altered/Space

Mark is a Chartered Surveyor who initially trained as an architect. He has over 30 years experience working in the property industry, primarily in the fields of property development and asset management. He has a passion for urban regeneration and a desire to ensure our traditional high streets and urban centres thrive and are sustainable in the future. Mark has extensive experience of delivering mixed use schemes in towns and cities across the UK; and of working collaboratively with both public and private bodies. A tree-lover, he also sits on the board of Portaferry Regeneration Limited.

Peter Larkum, Mental Health Expert & Industry Advocate

Jennie Colville, Head of ESG and Sustainability at Landsec

Jennie is Head of ESG and Sustainability at Landsec. In her role, Jennie leads Landsec’s sustainability strategy and its implementation across the company’s £11bn portfolio. 

A 20-year veteran of sustainability, Jennie has helped companies translate environmental, social and governance (ESG) opportunities and challenges into practical actions and business priorities. Jennie joined Landsec after three years at Capita, where she was the Responsible Business Director. Prior to that, she held numerous roles at both public and private sector companies including RSA Insurance Group, Kent County Council and Linklaters.

In the course of her career, Jennie has supported over 500 small and medium sized businesses to improve their environmental performance, secured £2.5 million to deliver a grant scheme for businesses in the low carbon sector and implemented a global law firm’s first ever ISO 14001 Environmental Management System.

Alberto Esguevillas, CEO of Eurofund Group 

A strategic leader with more than 25 years’ international experience within the Real Estate Industry in Asset, Development and Investment Management. Alberto has led the launch of Eurofund’s platform in the UK securing the acquisition of its first asset in Silverburn, attracting some of the most respected professionals in the industry and developing key JV relationships. Before joining Eurofund as the CEO for the UK business, Alberto led Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s Italian business, Alberto worked delivering Westfield London’s extension, Westfield Stratford City mixed use projects and headed new business in Europe. Alberto sat in the European Management Team (EMT) for URW and served as a corporate director in a number of URW and JV entities. Prior to joining Westfield in 2014, Alberto led Internos’ Global Investors (now Principal) pan European platform leading the retail teams and the Iberian offices. Alberto moved to London in 2004 to continue his career with Lend Lease. Alberto has a Masters in Industrial engineering, ICAI (Madrid) and an MBA by London Business School.

Peter Papadakos, Managing Director, Head of Research, Europe & APAC of Green Street

Andrew Hilston, Managing Director at The Ardent Companies

Andrew Hilston is a Managing Director at The Ardent Companies in the London office. He is responsible for deal origination, development, marketing, asset management and investment performance for UK operations. Andrew is a Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and is also a Chartered Town Planner. Andrew has over 20 years of client-side property experience at UK FTSE 100 REITs Landsec and Hammerson, as well as Brookfield. Prior to joining Ardent in January 2021, he was a member of the senior management team at the sovereign wealth backed Battersea Power Station development project. Andrew has extensive knowledge of Retail, Office and Residential asset classes as well as strategic land acquisitions and dispositions. He has been involved in a number of joint venture partnerships and corporate disposals. Andrew has a BSc (Hons) in Land Management and an MSc in Property Development from the University of Reading.

Annalise Jalland, Head of Asset Management – Shopping Centres at British Land

Annalise joined British Land in 2014 and leads the Shopping Centre Asset Management team. Annalise is responsible for a diverse portfolio of retail led assets across the country including Meadowhall in Sheffield, Southgate in Bath and West One in London. She has 15 years of real estate experience spanning a broad range of activities including asset management, leasing and portfolio analysis.  Annalise specialises in retail asset management of shopping centre and retail park environments. She is passionate about creating vibrant places that deliver community impact and commercial success. She is skilled in stakeholder engagement and real estate finance, with a data-informed approach to managing asset performance. Before joining British Land she spent 4 years at CBRE working in valuation and lease consultancy. She is a Chartered Surveyor and holds an MSc in Real Estate from the University of Reading and BSc in Economics from the University of York.

Dan Tyers, Chief Strategy Officer at Blue Tiger Marketing

With over 20 years of experience in the media industry, Dan brings a wealth of expertise in commercial trading and strategy to his role at Blue Tiger. His career spans some of the world’s most respected broadcasters, publishers, and ad tech organisations, including Virgin Media, Reach, Specific Media, and Ogury. Known for delivering market-leading growth, Dan has successfully built and maintained strong relationships across both the buy and sell side in the UK and global advertising markets. Dan is passionate about driving results through strategic media partnerships. He combines analytical thinking with a deep understanding of audience behaviours to create solutions that align with clients’ business objectives.

At Blue Tiger, a media agency backed by over 25 years of expertise in media strategy, planning, and buying, Dan plays a key role in delivering a bespoke, ‘white glove’ service to clients.  The team prides itself on its 95% client retention rate over the past five years and a with a key focus on ROI —particularly across the property and retail sectors. Their strategic approach centres on segmentation and synchronisation: ensuring the right message reaches the right audience, at the right time, via the right channels. Dan’s commitment to innovation and excellence helps ensure client roadmaps are not only effective but future-proof.

Dan Parr, Senior Vice President at CACI

As Vice President at CACI Ltd, Dan brings over 20 years of experience in helping companies place customer understanding at the core of their operations. He leads a team of data and analytics experts who deliver market-leading data services, software, and consultancy tailored to clients’ needs for customer insight. Dan thrives on building long-term, collaborative relationships with customers, gaining a deep understanding of their business challenges and aspirations, and delivering innovative, actionable solutions that strengthen their competitive edge.

Peter Colthurst, Retail Analytics Expert, Deloitte

As a leader in Deloitte’s AI team, Peter has spent the last 20 years helping organisations across various industries to understand how to apply new technologies to make the most valuable use of their data and optimise their decisions. His experience includes defining strategies for adopting AI;  building and operating AI-based solutions;  designing and developing in-house AI and data teams; and demystifying AI for executives and their teams so they can determine the role AI can and cannot play for them.

Gina Colley, Architect/Associate Director at Threesixty Architecture

Working on town and city centre urban planning and retrofit projects across the UK, Gina has an inclusive and human-centric approach to design. Winner of a Revo Rising Star Award in 2024, she has a particular interest the design of urban environments, education spaces, workplace and community spaces.

Ben Hammond, Growth & Performance Manager, Toolbox Marketing

Ben has over 10 years retail marketing experience, with 6 years in the retail real estate space at leading agency Toolbox Marketing. Working with places across the country, Ben and the Toolbox team deliver strategic marketing and vibrant placemaking to shape destinations.

Georgie Manly, Retail Customer Propositions Director at Landsec

Georgie is responsible for the creative direction, strategy, and delivery of new and enhanced guest experiences across Landsec’s Retail Portfolio. She has extensive experience too, having created world-class customer experiences and brand propositions for FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies across many industries, including hospitality, retail, and workplace.

At Landsec she continues to lead her team to enhance the guest experience with new placemaking, services, play areas, and innovative new use of space to drive footfall, dwell, satisfaction, and spend across the schemes – support guests needs and the success of Landsec’s Brand Partners. In addition to leading guest experiences, she recently delivered the new single positioning and principles for Landsec Retail to ensure everything delivered across the portfolio has a Landsec handprint while reflecting the destination’s local areas.

Jonathan Jones, Associate Director at Chapman Taylor

Jonathan brings expertise in residential and mixed-use projects across the UK and internationally, with a particular focus on concept design and feasibility. His creative approach and ability to shape early design narratives play a key role in client engagement. He maintains close links with the University of the West of England’s School of Architecture and is actively involved in mentoring emerging design talent.

Matilda Farmer, Senior Surveyor at Lunson Mitchenall

Tilda joined Lunson Mitchenall in 2021 and works within the agency team working on a variety of different assets including The Glades in Bromley, Princesshay in Exeter, Triptych along Bankside, and Cabot Circus in Bristol. Tilda has a love for independent retailers and at weekends is always exploring different London locations for the next retailer pop up or local market.