People Property Place

This week, I sat down with Rishi Bhuchar, CEO of CBRE UK and Ireland, for a conversation that is as much about who he is as a person as it is about what he has built across one of the most decorated careers in real estate investment banking.
Rishi's story starts in a way that most people in this industry would not expect. Parents who arrived from India in the 1960s with nothing, a childhood where money was scarce and fitting in was hard, and a career that began not with a burning ambition for real estate but with a scramble for a summer placement and a salary that felt like life changing money.
What followed was three decades of building, leaving, returning and building again across Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Ernst & Young, MGPA and Jefferies. Along the way he led the $65 billion Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield deal, the largest real estate transaction ever done in Europe, took Jefferies from unranked to number one in UK real estate M&A in five years, and quietly funded schools in India, yoga classes for pensioners and homeless people in London, all without telling anyone.
We discuss what it actually felt like to walk into CBRE not knowing a single one of the 3,500 people in the business, why his wife predicted he would run a business long before he ever thought about it himself, and the leadership principles he has carried since his earliest days in banking when he learned how not to do things just as much as how to do them.
And of course, I asked Rishi the big question: Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would he invest in if he had £500 million to deploy? 
Drop your thoughts in the comments.

We would love to hear your take.

Key Topics
✅ His Early Career, the Moves, the Lessons and Reflections
✅ The Mammoth $65 Billion Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield Deal
✅ How Rishi Took Jefferies From Unranked to Number One in Five Years
✅ Why He Walked into CBRE Not Knowing a Single Person in the Business
✅ A Five-Point Leadership Philosophy: Clients, Margin, Data, Accountability, and Fun
✅ The 90% Stat About Fatherhood That Made Him Reassess Everything
✅ Receiving an MBE for Private Long-Term Support of Charities like Magic Breakfast
✅ Analysing the Current Market and Opportunities in Public Real Estate Securities
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/

This week is different. I'm joined by my friend Harry Wentworth Stanley, Investment Director at BauMont Real Estate Capital, for what I believe is the most important conversation I've ever had on this podcast.
20 years ago, Harry lost his older brother James to suicide. James was 21, in his final year at Newcastle, sporty, academic, popular, with no history of mental illness. Following a routine operation he went into a suicidal crisis over two weeks, walked into A&E asking for help, and was sent away as a low priority patient. He took his own life shortly after.
Harry committed to doing something significant in James' memory every decade. Ten years ago he rowed the Atlantic, opening the first James' Place in Liverpool in 2018. Now, on the 20-year anniversary, 22 May 2026, he's taking on 'Journey For James': cycling, paddle boarding, and running 400+ miles from Newcastle to London via Liverpool and Birmingham. Eight days, four cities, each home to a James' Place Centre. The aim: raise over £100,000.
About James' Place
A charity delivering life saving therapy to men in suicidal crisis. Free, fast, delivered by qualified therapists in centres that feel like a home, not a hospital. Four UK centres, with a fifth opening next year. Over 5,000 men have been through the doors since 2018. 
What We Covered
The challenge, James' story, how Harry's family dealt with the unimaginable loss, why they decided to become 'operators', why the James' Place model works, the male only focus, changing the vernacular around suicide, and the most important question: if you're worried about someone, ask them directly. Two construction workers in the UK take their own lives every working day. This matters not only for our industry, but for every single one of us.
How To Support
Donate: https://www.justgiving.com/page/journeyforjames

£15 pays for the first conversation with a man in suicidal crisis to get him the help he needs, the first step in his recovery.

£25 covers the cost of booking appointments for 10 men in suicidal crisis

£50 provides an initial assessment for a man in suicidal crisis at a James' Place centre, within two working days of him seeking help.

£110 covers the cost of a therapy session in the safe and welcoming environment of a James' Place centre.

£250 delivers one outreach session at a company or in the community to help James' Place to reach more men in need.

£850 funds one therapist for a week, meaning 20 men do not face their crises alone.

£2,000 supports one man through James' Place's life-saving intervention, enabling him to dismantle his crisis and find hope for the future.
 
Do us a favour and share this conversation.
Ask the difficult question.
And if you want more info:
James' Place: https://jamesplace.org.uk 
Harry's LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harry-wentworth-stanley-81b58b61/ 
James' Place LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/james-place-charity
Harry, you're a legend. I have no doubt James would be so proud of you.
Go get it!
Matt

This week, I sat down with Mark Russell, CIO and Head of Real Estate at Federated Hermes, for a conversation about what it really means to build a career on first principles, and why that philosophy is becoming more valuable in today's market than it has been in years.
Mark's route into real estate began with a week of work experience organised by his headmaster, driving around the southeast in a sports car looking at office buildings. He was 17. It is a story that says something important about how the industry finds its people, and more pointedly, about how many people it never finds at all.
What followed was a career built across some of the most formative environments in UK real estate. JLL in the nineties, Legal and General managing institutional mandates, and then Prestbury Holdings where working closely with Nick Leslau taught him a set of disciplines that have stayed with him ever since. It is better to be bored than bust. Know why you are doing what you are doing. And collect the rent.
We discuss his arrival at Federated Hermes, what he found when he got there, and the patient process of listening, questioning and recalibrating that any leader needs to go through before they can move an organisation forward. Mark is refreshingly honest about what that looks like in practice and why asking dumb questions is one of the most underrated tools a CIO has.
The conversation then turns to the Federated Hermes business itself. An integrated platform spanning development, asset management and operations, with MEPC, one of the UK's most storied development businesses, sitting at its centre. Mark makes a compelling case for why that combination is exactly what the market needs right now, and why 82% of the total return from real estate over the past 40 years has come from income rather than capital growth.
And of course, I asked Mark the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had £500 million to deploy?
Drop your thoughts in the comments. We would love to hear your take.
Key Topics
✅ Nick Leslau, Prestbury and the Discipline of Knowing When to Sell
✅ Why Property Management Is the Most Undervalued Part of the Industry
✅ How to Lead an Organisation Through Uncertainty Without Losing the Team
✅ The Case for Income Over Capital Growth in the Current Cycle
✅ Why Urban Regeneration and Brownfield Sites Are the Biggest Opportunity in UK Real Estate
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/

This week, I sat down with Justin Hildebrandt, Senior Managing Director and Head of Europe at Affinius Capital, to explore a career that began on construction sites in Napa Valley and has taken him to the forefront of one of the most quietly formidable real estate platforms operating in Europe today.
Justin's path into real estate was shaped early. A father in construction, summers spent on job sites, and a year in Germany as a 16-year-old exchange student that he credits with permanently expanding his ambitions and ultimately pulling him back to Europe decades later. That move to London on the day of the Brexit vote, intended as a short term expat stint, is now approaching a decade.
We discuss the journey from USAA Real Estate, where Justin joined a 3 billion dollar business in 2011 and helped grow it to the 62 billion dollar platform it is today, and what that kind of growth actually requires in terms of creativity, discipline and the willingness to pivot into new strategies before the market catches up. Justin is candid about how the business got there and why AUM for its own sake was never the point.
The conversation unpacks each of Affinius Capital's European strategies in detail. The Mount Park logistics platform that started with a handful of transactions and became a wholly owned pan-European business. The data centre strategy in West London that took three years to get through planning and is now a 140 megawatt site. The living strategy built in partnership with Package Living. And a credit platform that has grown to around 20 billion dollars of AUM globally and is increasingly active in Europe at exactly the right point in the cycle.
Justin also shares a perspective on the European market that is genuinely unusual. Having sat on the global investment committee and seen both sides of the Atlantic in real time, he makes a striking observation about where Europe now sits relative to the US in the current recovery.
And of course, I asked Justin the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had £500 million to deploy?
Drop your thoughts in the comments. We would love to hear your take.
Key Topics
✅ From Napa Valley to a Decade in London. The Career That Followed Opportunity Wherever It Led
✅ Growing a Business From $3Bn to $62Bn. What It Actually Takes
✅ Mount Park, Data Centres, Living and Credit. Inside the Affinius Capital European Platform
✅ Why Europe May Be Leading the US for the First Time in Several Cycles
✅ AI, Heat Mapping and the Future of Smarter Real Estate Decision Making
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/

This week, I sat down with Mark Bourgeois, Chief Executive of the Government Property Agency, for a conversation that bridges the worlds of private sector real estate and public sector purpose in a way that very few guests on this show ever could.
Mark's journey into real estate began not through a carefully planned career move but through a rugby sevens team at Donaldson's in Leeds. What followed was 25 years at the sharp end of the retail property industry, from running shopping centre teams at Capital Regional through to managing director roles at Hammerson, navigating two of the most turbulent periods the sector has ever seen. The Global Financial Crisis and the structural disruption of COVID taught him things about leadership under pressure that no business school could.
We discuss what it really feels like to lead a three billion pound business through a fight for survival, why staying close to your North Star matters more than ever when the ground is shifting beneath you, and how Mark's unusually broad grounding in finance shaped a career that consistently put him ahead of the curve in a sector famous for siloed thinking.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Mark explains what drew him from the private sector into public sector leadership, first at Liverpool City Council during one of the most challenging periods in its modern history, and then to the GPA. He is candid about what surprised him, what frustrated him, and what has genuinely inspired him about leading a 500 person organisation with a mandate to transform how government uses its estate across the UK.
Mark also shares his thinking on AI and why he believes every leader has a personal responsibility to get deep into the technology rather than delegating it to someone else in the organisation.
And of course, I asked Mark the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had £500 million to deploy?
Drop your thoughts in the comments. We would love to hear your take.
Key Topics
✅ From Rugby Sevens to Real Estate. The Unlikely Career Origin Story
✅ Leading Through the Global Financial Crisis and the Retail Collapse
✅ What the Public Sector Teaches You About Leadership That the Private Sector Cannot
✅ Inside the Government Property Agency. The Mission, the Portfolio and the Opportunity
✅ Why Every Leader Must Be a Digital Leader Right Now
 
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/