#118 Piers Slater - Founder & CEO of Reef Origin
Piers Slater is the Founder & CEO of Reef Origin with over two decades of experience building and scaling real estate platforms. After founding Reef Estates in 2001 (trading as Reef Group from 2017), he grew the business to over £2bn under development management. In 2024, he co-founded Reef Origin, focusing on sectors at the intersection of real assets and innovation - life sciences, Industry 4.0, digital, energy infrastructure, and venture capital - with a completed portfolio value exceeding £20bn under development management. Piers holds a BSc in Estate Management and an MSc in Property Investment Finance, and is a Chartered Surveyor. He is also a founding investor and board director of Global Space Futures, Perpetual Atomics, and Xange.com, and sits on the boards of Didcot First and the Stevenage Development Board. I sat down with Piers to discuss a broad range of subjects which covered some of the following topics: • Early career moves and how he got into real estate • Borrowing £50,000 from his father-in-law to set up Reef Origin • Building Reef Estates with a bucket load of naïve optimism, entrepreneurial spirit, and creativity • Transitioning the business from Reef Estates to Reef Origin – why, how & future ambitions • Owning the whole value chain & the strategic reasoning behind vertically integrating the business • Circular economy, climate, digital infrastructure, automation, AI & ML • Perspective on the current economic and political landscape - Is the UK economy anti-growth? • Diversification, international expansion, and current opportunity set • Decarbonisation, industrial strategy, and the role of nuclear energy as an economic driver • Future-proofing the built environment and reimagining real estate • Reef’s £100bn enterprise value ambition Oh and one last question - who are the People, what Property, and in which Place Piers would invest should he have £500m of capital at his disposal. Catch the full episode which is live on Youtube, Spotify and Apple NOW! The People Property Place Podcast 🎙️ powered by Rockbourne - the team recruit Leadership & Future Leadership hires for Real Estate Funds, Owners, Investors & Developers. See below a snap shot of some of the projects the team have completed: Built a full development team from scratch for an international developer launching a new platform in the UK. Completed a search for a COO/MD succession role, the most critical hire for a founder preparing for retirement within the next five years. Successfully placed seven professionals across finance, development, and investment for a well-capitalised, active value investor. Successfully placed our 8th team member into a 12-person challenger brand - now that's a true partnership in action! Assembled a three-person investment team for an active residential investor and developer. Recruited a Head of Financial Modelling for a top investor/developer to enhance modelling, reporting, and decision-making to aid capital raising & deployment efforts. Struggling to hire top talent? Think there’s a better way? Get in touch to see if we can help. #peoplepropertyplace #podcast #rockbourne #realestate
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