People Property Place

This week, I sat down with Michela Hancock to unpack the journey from psychology graduate to property entrepreneur, and how she helped pioneer institutional build to rent in the UK long before it was widely accepted.
Michela is the Co-Founder and CEO of Hilltop Property Partners. Before launching Hilltop, she worked across US and UK real estate, including early exposure to multifamily housing in the United States, and later bringing that institutional rental mindset into the UK market at a time when many believed renting would never become a lifestyle choice.
In this conversation, Michela shares how growing up in a family business shaped her entrepreneurial mindset, and why she made the difficult decision to pivot away from a career in clinical psychology after years of study. That willingness to change direction led her into real estate development, where she combined US multifamily experience with a long term conviction around UK rental housing.
We explore the early days of institutional build to rent in the UK, when pension funds and advisors were sceptical, and Michela was repeatedly told that everyone in Britain wanted to own rather than rent. She explains how she built conviction around demographic change, quality rental supply gaps and the concept of renting as a lifestyle choice.
The conversation then moves into Hilltop's strategy, targeting the so called squeezed middle and key worker demographic, where the need for high quality, attainable rental housing is most acute. Michela outlines the viability pressures facing mid market rental delivery today, and why building now into a supply constrained environment could create long term opportunity.
We also discuss capital raising in a global market where UK development competes for attention and allocation, and why resilience, persistence and finding the right partner can be more important than finding hundreds of investors. Michela shares candid lessons on entrepreneurship, including the advice she received that starting a business is like being in a rowboat with no oars, and why she chose to do it anyway.
This is a conversation about conviction, mid market housing, entrepreneurship and building through difficult cycles.
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
✅ From Psychology to Property
Why Michela pivoted careers after years of study and what that taught her about risk and conviction.
✅ Early Institutional Build to Rent
How she introduced US multifamily thinking into a sceptical UK market.
✅ Renting as a Lifestyle Choice
Challenging the assumption that everyone wants to own.
✅ The Squeezed Middle Opportunity
Targeting key workers and mid market rental housing in a viability constrained environment.
✅ Raising Capital in a Global Market
Why alignment and persistence matter more than volume.
✅ Building Hilltop Property Partners
Entrepreneurship, partnership and long term platform thinking.
✅ Resilience and Founder Mindset
The "never leave your chair" philosophy and showing up every day.
And of course, I asked Michela the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had £500 million to deploy?
If you have thoughts or questions about this episode, drop them in the comments. I'd love to hear your take.
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 Andrew Hynard to unpack a corporate career that spans more than three decades at JLL, the chief executive leadership of one of London's most prestigious estates, and a post-executive chapter advising some of the most interesting property businesses in the UK.
Andrew spent the majority of his career at JLL focused on Capital Markets, ultimately becoming Deputy Chairman of the UK business. He later became Chief Executive of The Howard de Walden Estate, overseeing 90 acres in Marylebone with a portfolio heavily weighted toward private healthcare in and around Harley Street. Today, he advises businesses including Clipstone Investment Management, Howard Group, Orega, Taurus Developments and Love Ventures, a VC investor in early stage technology companies  
In this conversation, Andrew reflects on growing up as the son of a surveyor in Hastings and deciding at just ten years old that property would be his path. We explore his early decision to specialise in investment rather than rotate through departments, and why he later regretted not gaining broader technical grounding despite accelerating his capital markets career.
We go deep into his time at JLL, including the cultural and strategic forces behind the merger with King Sturge, how he navigated internal politics without burning bridges, and why playing the long game and treating people with decency became his defining leadership philosophy.
Andrew also shares the transition from advisory to client side when he became CEO of Howard de Walden, what it really means to run a £3–4 billion estate in one of London's most complex submarkets, and why attracting world class healthcare operators like Cleveland Clinic was a defining moment.
We then turn to today's market. Andrew gives a candid view on the state of UK real estate, the leadership reset across major advisory firms, where growth is actually coming from, why income will dominate returns for the foreseeable future, and why he believes we are approaching an inflection point rather than a falling knife moment.
Finally, we explore his portfolio of advisory roles, his work in venture capital, and why mentoring the next generation is one of the most important investments he now makes.
 
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
✅ From Hastings to Deputy Chairman
How Andrew set his sights on property at age ten and built a 30+ year capital markets career.
✅ The King Sturge Merger
The first conversation that led to one of the most significant UK advisory mergers of the past two decades.
✅ Advisory vs Client Side
What changes when you move from broker to principal and how to make that transition successfully.
✅ Leading the Howard de Walden Estate
Healthcare, tenant mix strategy, stakeholder management and long term estate stewardship.
✅ The State of the UK Market
Flat growth, tentative optimism, income driven returns and why 2025 could be a turning point.
✅ Leadership Change Across UK Agencies
Why so many CEOs have changed and what the next generation must get right.
✅ Building a Post Executive Portfolio
Advisory roles, venture capital, mentoring and giving back to the industry.
And of course, I asked Andrew the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had £500 million to deploy?
If you have thoughts or questions about this episode, drop them in the comments. I'd love to hear your take.
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 Pavel Streblov to unpack how one of Central Europe's most established private real estate groups is entering the UK market, why London still matters, and what it really takes to build and deliver at scale as a developer in today's environment.
Pavel is Business Director at Penta Real Estate, a privately owned investment group founded by five university classmates, with major interests spanning healthcare, banking, media, and large scale urban real estate. Pavel leads Penta's UK platform and is responsible for its expansion into London, bringing institutional capital, long term thinking, and a developer led mindset into a market facing structural supply constraints.
In this conversation, Pavel explains why Penta chose to expand beyond its home markets in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, how the group reached scale domestically, and why development requires a fundamentally different approach to buying standing assets. We explore why building a credible pipeline matters more than one off success, and how local knowledge, council dynamics, and delivery track record determine whether a developer is taken seriously.
We discuss Penta's first major UK move, a joint venture with Ballymore across two residential schemes totalling around 700 homes and approximately £700 million of development value. Pavel shares how Penta thinks about quality, amenity, and long term ownership, and why entering the market at the bottom of the cycle can create asymmetric opportunity when supply is constrained.
The conversation also goes deep on the UK market itself. Pavel offers a blunt comparison between the UK and the Czech Republic, explaining how stamp duty, transaction costs, and mortgage pricing actively discourage ownership and push local buyers into renting. We unpack Gateway 2, viability pressure, delivery delays, and why flexibility and speed of decision making have become critical advantages in a market full of stalled and so called zombie projects.
We close by looking ahead. Pavel explains how Penta is already using AI in early stage design and option testing, and why being a developer ultimately requires optimism. If you fully price every risk, nothing ever gets built.
 
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
 
✅ Why Penta Chose the UK
How scale limits in home markets pushed Penta to expand and why London stood out.
✅ Development Versus Standing Assets
Why development is a long term commitment that requires local conviction and pipeline depth.
✅ The Ballymore Joint Venture
700 homes, £700m of value, and why scale matters from day one.
✅ Ownership, Stamp Duty and Market Friction
Why UK tax structures discourage buying and reshape demand dynamics.
✅ Gateway 2 and Viability Pressure
How regulation and delays are constraining supply and reshaping opportunity.
✅ Zombie Projects and Flexible Capital
Why creativity, speed, and structure now unlock returns.
✅ AI and the Developer Mindset
How technology supports decision making and why optimism still matters.
 
And of course, I asked Pavel the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had £500 million to deploy?
If you have thoughts or questions about this episode, drop them in the comments. I'd love to hear your take.
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 Dr. Kate Jarvis to unpack a journey that spans childhood instability, academic rigour, early machine learning, and the building of an AI native platform designed to fundamentally change how real asset decisions are made.
Kate is CEO and co founder of Fifth Dimension, a technology company powering decision making across real assets, underwriting, asset management and portfolio strategy for some of the world's largest real estate and investment organisations. With a PhD from Stanford and more than fifteen years building machine learning backed businesses across the US, UK and Europe, Kate sits at the intersection of deep technical expertise and real world operational experience.
In this conversation, Kate shares how growing up with her family home repossessed at a young age shaped her relationship with risk, security and institutions, and why those early experiences still influence how she builds businesses today. We explore her path through linguistics and early AI research, long before machine learning became mainstream, and how understanding language, prediction and inference laid the foundations for her later work in real assets.
We discuss how Kate entered real estate through shared ownership and institutional capital deployment, where she encountered the reality of manual underwriting, endless spreadsheets, PDFs and investment committee drag. That frustration became the catalyst for Fifth Dimension. Kate explains why most AI tools fail in regulated, high stakes environments, why auditability matters more than automation, and how Fifth Dimension works alongside investment teams to amplify judgement rather than replace it. The conversation also looks ahead to what it really means to be AI native, who wins over the next decade, and why smaller, smarter teams may soon outperform incumbents with scale alone.
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
✅ From Instability to Resilience
How early life experiences shaped Kate's approach to risk, ambition and long term thinking.
✅ From Linguistics to Machine Learning
Why language, prediction and inference sit at the heart of modern AI and real asset decision making.
✅ Why Real Estate Underwriting Is Broken
The operational drag inside institutional real estate and why spreadsheets still dominate billion pound decisions.
✅ Building Fifth Dimension
How shared ownership, manual IC processes and frustration with legacy workflows led to an AI native platform.
✅ AI as an Amplifier, Not a Replacement
Why human judgement, creativity and context still matter and how AI should support decision makers, not remove them.
And of course, I asked Kate the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had £500 million to deploy?
If you have thoughts or questions about this episode, drop them in the comments. I'd love to hear your take.
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 Ian Rickwood to unpack a career that spans entrepreneurship, private equity, consumer businesses, failed exits, market downturns, and ultimately the building of a long term real estate investment and capital platform.
Ian is Founder and Chairman of Henley, a fast growing private equity real estate investment and venture capital business operating across the UK, Europe and the US. Over the last two decades, Henley has invested across residential, industrial, social and supported housing, urban regeneration and large scale development, working with institutional capital, high net worth investors and operating partners.
In this conversation, Ian shares how early years in FMCG and entrepreneurial ventures laid the foundations for his approach to risk and execution, why scaling consumer businesses taught him lessons that many investors only learn later, and how navigating both successful exits and painful failures shaped his long term mindset. We discuss what it really feels like when a deal does not work, why some businesses are structurally broken regardless of management quality, and how those experiences directly influenced Ian's transition into real estate and private capital.
Ian also explains how Henley was formed out of operational experience rather than financial engineering, why long dated and complex projects can offer an edge, and how the firm thinks about platform building, partnerships and capital alignment. We explore social and supported housing, urban regeneration at scale, the challenges of deploying capital through cycles, and why conviction becomes more important as markets tighten. The conversation also touches on US expansion, joint venture models, and what experienced operators look for when backing people rather than just projects.
 
Key Topics Covered in This Episode
✅ From Operator to Investor
How early entrepreneurial and operating experience shaped Ian's approach to capital, risk and decision making.
✅ When Exits Do Not Go to Plan
Why some businesses fail despite strong management and what those lessons teach long term investors.
✅ Building Henley Through Cycles
How private equity thinking, real estate fundamentals and operational discipline came together.
✅ Complexity as a Competitive Advantage
Why long dated, operationally intensive and misunderstood assets can outperform.
✅ Capital, Partnerships and Conviction
How Henley approaches joint ventures, institutional capital and platform growth across markets.
And of course, I asked Ian the big question:
Who are the People, what Property, and which Place would you invest in if you had £500 million to deploy?
If you have thoughts or questions about this episode, drop them in the comments. I'd love to hear your take.
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/