MVPs: Editor’s innovator picks

PlaceTech editor, Paul Unger, names his Most Valuable Players, setting about changing the property industry, as featured in the TRENDS Q3 report.

Caleb Parker

BOLD

Caleb is co-founder and chief executive of BOLD, the ‘space as a service’ platform bringing hotel-style hospitality to the offices sector. BOLD builds spaces that focus on a work-life blend, in flexible environments designed to inspire innovative thinking and collaboration.

Melanie Leech

British Property Federation

Melanie has headed up BPF for the past 3 years. She’s a vocal proponent of tech in property, as part of her role in promoting UK real estate and sustainable partnerships between the government and private sector. BPF has just published its tech manifesto for property, setting out recommendations for filling the gap between the supply
and demand of UK proptech applications.

Phil Kemp

Bruntwood SciTech

It’s less than 2 years since the former managing director of formats at Regus joined Bruntwood as chief commercial officer, to lead customer proposition, digital, marketing and sales. The JV with Legal & General to add 5m sq ft to the science and tech parks portfolio propels him to chief executive of a development vehicle many in the UK will be
watching with a keen eye.

Kamran Moazami

WSP

Kamran is managing director of property and buildings at WSP. The firm is providing a range of building services for London’s 22 Bishopsgate. At 2m sq ft and 62 storeys, it’s one of the most exciting developments in Europe, with a flexible IT central nervous system designed in from the outset. WSP’s engineers are being challenged to “deliver an extremely efficient building [and] a high volume of services and systems designed with built-in flexibility to accommodate the many as-yet undecided facilities and office layouts required by future tenants.”

Roger Tan

UNSense

Roger is managing director and board member of UNSense, the arch tech company founded by UNStudio – an innovative platform that explores and develops how tech can humanise the built environment. Roger was
previously managing partner of Broekbakema architects based in the Netherlands. Before his years in architecture, Roger had an extensive career in the finance industry, leading organisational change in one of the leading investment management companies in Europe.

Emma Long

Legal + General

As head of corporate strategy, Emma oversees a strategy with modernisation at its heart. Central to this is AToM, L&G’s flexible investment management software which acts as a powerful tool for investment managers by providing real-time analysis and projections. The platform acts as a network that allows external applications, with diverse areas of knowledge, to essentially be ‘plugged-in’ which L&G then extracts valuable data from.

Dominic Grace

Savills

Dominic heads up global property adviser Savills’ residential development activity in London and sits on the Savills UK board. Savills has ramped up its tech focus, having invested in VU.CITY, a startup that produces interactive 3D digital city models, as well as forming Workthere, a tech-powered flexible office brokerage service. Dominic works with some major development names in the UK market, including Grosvenor, British Land, Argent, Land Securities,
and Canary Wharf Group.

Dirk Paelinck

Workero, Interoffices, Proptech House

Dirk is CEO of Workero and Interoffices, co-founder of Proptech House: The European Network. Paelinck and partners from 5 countries have set a bold mission to “harmonise the fragmented European PropTech market, to strengthen the European PropTech economy and to help European institutions create a legal framework adapted to new technologies of PropTech”. The initiative has the support of the EU Commission and the European Innovation Council, to scale up cross-border collaboration and to facilitate access to EU Funding. Mighty ambitions. We wish them well.

• Download the full report here