People Property Place

This week, I sat down with Lord Walker, Executive Chair of Iceland Food Group, Founder and Chairman of Bywater, and the Prime Minister's Cost of Living Champion.
Richard started his property career on the JLL graduate scheme in the West End before moving to Warsaw to build a value-add business across Eastern Europe. After returning to the UK, Bywater spent several years searching for its niche before the former Costa Roastery site in Lambeth became Paradise - one of the UK's largest CLT mass timber office buildings. That project helped bring in Sumitomo Forestry, a 400-year-old Japanese partner, and gave Bywater the platform to scale into timber-led workspaces and living assets.
In this conversation, Richard talks about patient capital, building through the GFC, why "long term greedy" shapes both Bywater and Iceland, how purpose and profit can sit together, and what his new role in the House of Lords means for his work around the cost of living.
We also discuss Iceland's growth into a £4.5bn family-owned retailer, his year working on the shop floor, climbing Everest in 2023, and why resilience has been central to every stage of his career.
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Key Topics Covered in This Episode
✅ From The West End To Warsaw Lessons from the JLL grad scheme and building in Eastern Europe through the GFC.
✅ Paradise, Vauxhall & The Mass Timber Thesis How the CLT office in Vauxhall became the deal that defined Bywater.
✅ Sumitomo And The Power Of Patient Capital Why a 400-year-old Japanese partner is rewriting how Bywater thinks about cycles and product.
✅ Scaling Beyond Offices £1 billion GDV by year end, a new pension-fund vehicle, and the move into living.
✅ Long Term Greedy Why purpose-led businesses last longer and why Gen Z is voting with their feet.
[This episode was recorded on 16th April 2026]
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.
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This week, I sat down with James Halstead, Managing Director and BlackRock's Chief Investment Officer for European Value Add Real Estate, for a conversation that opens with one of the most direct and challenging questions the show has ever asked. Is real estate facing an existential crisis?
James does not flinch. He gives a forensically honest answer about where real estate equity sits today relative to private credit and infrastructure, why the sector has underperformed on a risk adjusted basis over the last decade, and what that means for how smart managers need to construct portfolios going forward. It is the kind of candour that is rare from someone at his level.
His own career is a fascinating study in patience, reinvention and strategic opportunism. Starting as a lawyer at BLP, a chance six month secondment to MGP during the financial crisis became the fork in the road that changed everything. What followed was a decade of deliberate stepping stones, going sideways and sometimes backwards, learning debt, development, asset management and acquisitions from the coalface up, until the breadth of that foundation became the very thing that set him apart.
We explore how Brexit, far from derailing his career, became the catalyst for building businesses in Ireland and Spain and ultimately broadening the BlackRock European platform in ways that would not have happened otherwise. James is candid about the role of serendipity versus strategy in how careers actually develop, and why the difference matters less than people think.
The conversation also tackles the talent gap that keeps him up at night. What happens to ambitious professionals in their early thirties when their managers stop investing in their development, and why the industry is quietly producing a generation of people who have plateaued without knowing it.
And of course, I asked James 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
✅ Is Real Estate Facing an Existential Crisis in Private Markets?
✅ Why Real Estate Equity Has Underperformed and What Needs to Change
✅ From Lawyer to BlackRock CIO. The Stepping Stone Career Nobody Planned
✅ How Brexit Became the Catalyst for Building Across Europe
✅ The Talent Development Gap That Is Quietly Damaging the Industry
The People Property Place Podcast is powered by Rockbourne, recruiting leadership talent for real estate funds, owners, investors, and developers.
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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.
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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/