Our Trustees

Neil has over 20 years’ experience in the finance industry, working in London, Edinburgh, Zurich and Tokyo. A structured finance lawyer by background, Neil originally came to real estate from the hedge fund industry to focus on debt transactions and structuring. Following a 4.5 year period starting and running abrdn’s Japanese business, he returned at the end of 2019 to run all of its Real Assets capabilities.

For a while now, Neil has been really keen to give something back the society in which he lives. Given his view that real estate is entirely correlated to human behaviour – how we live, work, learn and consume – the industry collaboration, charitable focus and clear mission of LandAid immediately attracted him.

Neil is married with two children. When not spending time with family, Neil is passionate about travel and different cultures, cooking, wine and keeping fit – the latter to ensure he can partake in some of the former hobbies!

Mike Slade is former Chairman of Helical, a UK-listed property development and investment company.

Mike is married with three children. He is well known for his enthusiasm for yachting and launched the ‘Leopard’, a 100-foot swing-keel ocean racer, in June 2007, in which he won the Rolex Fastnet Race. He is an enthusiastic supporter of the many sports enjoyed by his family, and is heavily involved in raising funds for charity.

Mike is also a Fellow of the College of Estate Management, Chairman of the Wellington College Campaign, a trustee of both Purley Park and Sherborne School Foundation and Vice Admiral of the Marie Rose Trust.

Gillian Bowen JP, MBA, MA is the Chief Executive Officer at City YMCA, London. She has been in the youth field for over 20 years, has experience of working in the private sector and has held previous Chief Executive Officer positions in the Charity Sector.  Gillian is currently leading the completion of a £20m housing development for homeless young people in London – the first of its kind to be built in the last two decades. Gillian is an Adult and Youth Court Magistrate for the Central London Bench and holds the position of Deputy Youth Panel Chair for the London region. She is also a very proud dual-national – of UK and Grenada!

Andy Gulliford is Co-Founder of Oren Properties Ltd and an independent consultant to Salmon Property.

Prior to his plural career, he was with SEGRO Plc for 19 years and served as Chief Operating Officer and Board Director for 12 years. Before SEGRO, Andy spent 19 years at JLL where he was responsible for the Company’s industrial and logistics business in the UK and Europe.

Originally joining LandAid as a member of the Fundraising Committee in 2014, he became a Trustee in 2017. A keen supporter who has actively participated in fund raising events such as SleepOuts, 10k runs, Gala dinners and Steptober. Andy has a passion to break the vicious cycle of homelessness and lack of employment and is pleased to see and support LandAid work on the combination of accommodation provision and job opportunities.

Susan has a portfolio combining executive and non-executive work.

She has over 25 years of leadership in senior finance roles and is an experienced non-executive director.

A qualified chartered accountant (CAANZ fellow, ICAEW), she has a broad range of experience in accountancy and commerce, including banking and mortgage finance markets, long term residential property ownership, investment and risk management. For the 10 years to February 2020 Susan was CFO at Peabody Trust.

She now combines a part time executive role at Igloo Regeneration with several non-executive roles.

Gemma joined Blackstone in 2015 and is a Managing Director within the real estate team with responsibility for overseeing over GBP10bn of UK investments on behalf of the Blackstone real estate funds. She has spent the majority of her career in the private equity industry having started out as an associate at The Carlyle Group where she focused on real estate acquisition opportunities across Europe.

As part of her role at Blackstone Gemma, sits on numerous boards with a residential focus, including Sage Housing, Leaf Living and  iQ Student Accommodation. Gemma is keen to utilize her knowledge of the UK residential sector to support LandAid in its mission to help eliminate youth homelessness.

Gemma has two young children and in her spare time is a keen pianist and violinist.

Dan is founder of ‘Alpha Property Insight’ and ‘LIQUID Real Estate Innovation’ which help the property sector to understand, embrace and benefit from new ways of thinking and technology.

Dan spent his career working across the built environment and has held senior roles in some of the world’s leading data organisations such as Ordnance Survey, IPD (part of MSCI) and was Director of Data and information products for RICS where he also led the organisations ‘PropTech’ activity. Dan has been an active advocate for digital transformation across the built environment.

​Dan is on the BPF Technology and Innovation Working Group, the steering committee for MIPIM PropTech, on the RICS data handling professional statement working group and is founder of the not-for-profit ‘Real Estate Data Foundation’, helping the sector benefit from data.

Melanie joined the British Property Federation as Chief Executive in January 2015, following nine years as Director General of the Food and Drink Federation.

Melanie began her working life as a Police Constable in the Metropolitan Police Service. She joined the civil service (HM Customs) in 1988 and subsequently held senior roles in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Office of the Rail Regulator and the Cabinet Office. Her role is to champion UK real estate and to promote a long-term, sustainable partnership between governments and the sector to deliver a high quality built environment, and to create wealth.

Melanie is a Fellow of the RSA. In 2015, she was awarded a CBE for services to the food and drink industry.

Claire is a property lawyer and a longstanding partner in Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, an international law firm with offices across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. She is recognised as a leading expert in her field in both Chambers and Legal 500 guides to the legal profession and has extensive experience in all aspects of property and property related issues.

Claire’s early experience was in retail property which has remained a long standing interest. Her work has included advisory clients on redevelopment of the Dickens and Jones department store in Regent Street (now home to H&M and Aqua restaurant); redevelopment of the Angel building in Islington and 80 Charlotte Street; sale of the Old Spitalfields Market; and development of the Embassy Gardens estate next to the USA Embassy at Nine Elms.

Claire is also a committee member of REVO (the trade body for retail property), and a co-founder of a gender diversity initiative, Real Estate Balance (see www.realestatebalance.org) (with fellow Land Aid trustee Suzanne Avery) which is actively promoting and embedding an inclusive culture within the property industry. Claire is passionate about mentoring (and regularly mentors both within Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner and external mentees), family, hiking and craft beer.

Scott is Chief Operating Officer UK for Unibail Rodamco Westfield and leads their UK business, including the two flagship destinations at Westfield London and Westfield Stratford, and major mixed-use developments in Croydon, Stratford and White City.

Previously, Scott spent thirteen years at Land Securities plc, most recently as Managing Director of their £6.3 billion Retail business, and was a director of the plc board and the executive sponsor for their Diversity Campaign. Previous roles include three years as Managing Partner of Brookfield Asset Management, where he led their European business and more than 10 years at GE Capital Real Estate, latterly as Head of Business Development.

Scott has served as a Strategic Board member of the New West End Company and as Vice President of the City Property Association. He is also on the Council and the Property Committee of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, after retiring from active duty on the Thames Lifeboat Crew.

David is President of the British Property Federation and a Trustee of the UKGBC. He joined Argent in 1990, was appointed Joint Chief Executive in 2006 and Managing Partner of the new Argent LLP in 2012 and became Senior Partner in 2019. He is now Chairman of the Argent Related Partnership.

David recently won Estates Gazette’s ‘Outstanding Contribution to Property Award 2019’. In May 2015, David was awarded NW Insider Property Personality of the Year, and in April 2014, David jointly won the Property Week Personality of the Year Award with Roger Madelin.

Richard is Managing Director at Savills (UK) Limited and head of National Development Services. He has over 25 years’ experience in the Development, Funding and Agency markets.

The UK business, of more than 8,000 people, provides services across every property sector – Commercial, Rural and Residential. He leads a resilient, professional and balanced business which has a clear strategy, with a focus on ESG, Diversity and Inclusion and the optimum use of tech.

More recently, Richard has also become part of the LandAid Patrons Network – a collection of senior property leaders and LandAid alumni who are collectively using their knowledge and influence in the property and built environment industry to help support LandAid’s mission to end youth homelessness.

Damian has spent more than 25 years working in business information, predominantly as a journalist and editor, and more recently as a publisher with commercial responsibility for EG’s media and events business.

In his current role as Director of Market Development at EG, Damian aims to ensure EG’S strategy matches the priorities of the real estate sector, often working in partnership with businesses and individuals across the built environment. And, alongside a great team, Damian plays a part in ensuring EG is fully dedicated to inspiring positive change through our ESG, Technology, Wellbeing and D&I programmes.

Damian has sat on LandAid’s fundraising committee for over a decade and is now the Chair. Damian has always supported the charity’s aims and is driven to raise money and awareness to help this sector address one of society’s most damning problems.

Outside of work Damian enjoys listening to music – both on vinyl and live – while my children enjoy my inability to make any sort of rhythmic movement while doing so.