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.

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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.

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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.

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This week, I sat down with James Jacobs, Managing Director and Global Head of Real Assets within the Private Capital Advisory team at Lazard, to explore the topic Real Asset Capital Formation: Who Wins?

In this conversation, James opens with a striking assessment of where the market actually stands. Fundraising volumes rose for the first time in four years in 2025, up 27% year on year. But the headline number masks a far more complex story. The market has never been more concentrated, more competitive or more unforgiving for managers who don't understand what investors are really looking for today.

James breaks down the three sectors attracting the lion's share of capital, why 1 in 3 dollars raised last year went into a single asset class, and why two sectors that dominated the industry when he started his career over 25 years ago are now considered niche. He also shares a clear and candid view on what distinguishes the managers who are winning capital from those who are not, and why the answer comes back to something surprisingly simple.

We then explore three structural trends that James believes will define the industry for years to come. The bifurcation of the market into mega funds and hyper-specialists, the rapid rise of secondaries and continuation vehicles as a portfolio management tool, and the blurring of the lines between real estate and infrastructure that is quietly redirecting billions of dollars across asset class boundaries.

🎯 Key Topics

✅ Global Fundraising in 2025. Recovery or Illusion?

✅ The Three Sectors Dominating Capital Formation Right Now

✅ Why the Squeezed Middle Is Getting Squeezed Even Further

✅ Secondaries and Continuation Vehicles. Powerful Tool or Manager Lifeline?

✅ The Convergence of Real Estate and Infrastructure and What It Means for Your Capital

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 on People Property Place, we do something different. Recorded live on the ground at Mipim in Cannes, this episode is the first of a new format: People Property Place Profiles. Where I walk and talk with some of the most outspoken and influential figures across the real assets industry. This week's conversation features Shaun Simons, co-founder of Compton, whose previous episode held the number one download spot on the show for nearly two years. Recorded in the middle of one of the industry's biggest annual gatherings, Shaun is characteristically unfiltered, direct and full of conviction. The conversation opens with Shaun making a bold call — he is more optimistic about the market right now than he has been since 2021. He breaks down the three specific forces he believes are converging to make 2026 a genuinely pivotal year for the London office market, and why the narrative of an industry circling the drain is finally starting to shift. Shaun also takes aim at one of commercial property's biggest blind spots — the industry's chronic failure to communicate with the people it is actually trying to do business with — and explains why he believes the big surveying firms have been getting this fundamentally wrong for years. The discussion turns to the role of personal brand and social media in building a real estate business, where Shaun shares a remarkable story about how four years of consistent LinkedIn activity resulted in a 40,000 sq ft instruction he never had to pitch for. He also reveals that he attributes somewhere between 25 and 30% of Compton's total revenue directly to social media. Finally Shaun shares his outlook for the year ahead, why he believes the stars are aligning for a genuine market recovery and what keeps him up at night as he leads a growing team of over 30 people. Drop your thoughts in the comments. We would 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 Toby Phelps, Co-President of BGO, who has spent 30 years at the top of European real estate investing and been involved in over $20 billion of transactions across logistics, office, retail, residential and healthcare assets.

In this conversation, Toby traces a career that took him from JLL in the mid-nineties through Morgan Stanley's private equity real estate team, where he was in the building next to Lehman Brothers when the financial crisis hit. He reflects on what that moment did to his understanding of risk, and how the lessons absorbed at Tishman Speyer under Jerry Spier shaped everything that followed.

We explore the strategic evolution from Green Oak to BGO, now approaching $100 billion in AUM, why the merger with Bentall Kennedy made sense when so many others didn't, and what institutional investors are really demanding from managers today.

Toby also makes a compelling case for why European real estate remains one of the most misunderstood opportunities in global capital markets right now and why location, location, location needs a serious update.

And of course, I asked Toby 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. I would love to hear your take.

Key Topics

✅ From JLL to Morgan Stanley — building the foundations of a 30 year career

✅ Lehman Brothers, the financial crisis and what it really teaches you about risk

✅ Green Oak to BGO — the merger strategy that changed everything

✅ Why Europe is misunderstood by global capital

✅ AI, data science and the US versus Europe gap in real estate investing

Episode Chapters

00:00 - Introduction

00:09 - How Toby Got Into Real Estate

01:58 - Early Career at JLL

05:19 - Joining Morgan Stanley Real Estate

07:47 - Lessons from the Global Financial Crisis

09:49 - Tishman Speyer and Jerry Spier

12:42 - The Genesis of Green Oak

23:07 - Investment Strategy — Top Down Bottom Up

28:09 - Green Oak to BGO

31:36 - Sun Life and the Importance of a Capital Partner

33:57 - BGO's Five European Strategies

37:44 - Private Wealth Capital

42:27 - Location, Asset Quality and Power

44:01 - Is Europe Undervalued by Global Capital

46:20 - Succession Planning and Leadership

49:15 - AI and Data Science in Real Estate

54:00 - Attitude and Advice for the Next Generation

55:15 - The £500 Million Question

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 Mathieu Elshout to explore the journey that took him from environmental sciences into institutional real estate investing, and how he is now helping build the European property platform for one of Australia's fastest growing pension funds.

Mathieu is Head of European Property at Aware Super UK. Before joining Aware Super, he spent more than a decade at PGGM managing European real estate investments through the Global Financial Crisis and subsequent recovery, and later worked at Patrizia where he helped develop the firm's sustainability and impact investing strategy.

In this conversation, Mathieu shares how his early career began in environmental consultancy before gradually transitioning into the real estate sector. That background continues to shape the way he thinks about real assets today, particularly the growing importance of sustainability, long term value creation and the role real estate plays in the wider economy. 

We discuss his time at PGGM and the experience of managing institutional real estate portfolios during the Global Financial Crisis. Mathieu explains how those years shaped his perspective on leverage, liquidity and market cycles, and why some of the most valuable lessons in investing are learned during periods of stress. 

The conversation also explores his move to Patrizia and the development of its impact investing strategy. Mathieu explains how sustainability evolved from a niche topic into a core investment consideration, and why institutional investors increasingly see environmental and social outcomes as aligned with long term financial performance. 

Finally, we discuss Aware Super's growing presence in Europe and how the Australian superannuation model is creating some of the largest and most influential pools of capital in global real estate. Mathieu explains how the fund is building its European portfolio through partnerships and platforms including investments in UK residential, Spanish rental housing and hospitality, and why alignment with operating partners is critical when deploying long term capital. 

Key Topics Covered in This Episode

✅ From Environmental Science to Real Estate

Mathieu's path from sustainability consultancy into institutional property investing.

✅ Lessons from the Global Financial Crisis

What managing real estate portfolios through a market downturn teaches investors.

✅ Sustainability and Impact Investing

How ESG and impact strategies became central to institutional real estate investing.

✅ Building Aware Super's European Platform

Why the Australian pension fund model is expanding rapidly into global real estate.

✅ Investing Through Partnerships

Why alignment with operating partners is essential for long term capital.

EPISODE CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction

01:32 From Environmental Science to Real Estate

06:45 Early Career and Moving into Institutional Investing

14:10 Managing Portfolios Through the Global Financial Crisis

25:34 Sustainability and Impact Investing at Patrizia

36:22 The Aware Super Platform and European Expansion

47:18 Partnerships, Platforms and Investment Strategy

56:40 Where Opportunities Exist in Today's Market

01:02:11 The £500M Investment Question

And of course, I asked Mathieu 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 Michael Zerda to unpack a career that spans private equity real estate, distressed credit, structured capital and some of the most complex investment situations across Europe and the United States.

Michael is Global Head of Real Estate at Santander Alternative Investments and CEO of Deva Capital, the real estate and corporate capital solutions investment arm of the business. Over a 25 year career, he has helped raise more than $5 billion of capital and overseen the deployment of more than $11 billion of equity across more than 200 transactions across Western Europe.

In this conversation, Michael shares the story behind his journey from a Polish immigrant growing up in Texas to becoming a global real estate investor working across debt, equity and special situations. We explore how his early career developed through private equity real estate, distressed debt and high yield investing, and how those experiences shaped the way he approaches market cycles today. 

We discuss why the widely predicted wave of real estate distress following the interest rate shock of 2022 has not materialised in the way many investors expected. Michael explains how stronger bank balance sheets, lower leverage and asset owners holding positions for longer have fundamentally changed the dynamics compared with previous cycles. 

The conversation also explores where stress is actually appearing in the market today. Rather than dramatic distress events, Michael highlights a quieter liquidity squeeze affecting operators whose business models rely on transactions and capital raising. For investors able to deploy flexible capital across debt, structured equity or partnerships, this environment may present significant opportunities. 

Finally, we discuss Michael's current role within Santander Alternative Investments, how the platform integrates real estate investing with corporate special situations, and where he sees opportunities emerging across Europe as markets adjust to the new interest rate environment. 

Key Topics Covered in This Episode

✅ From Poland to Texas

Michael's unconventional journey into global real estate investing.

✅ The Distress That Never Came

Why the expected wave of distressed real estate has taken longer to appear.

✅ Liquidity Stress Beneath the Surface

How fundraising challenges and fewer transactions are impacting operators.

✅ Debt, Equity and Special Situations

Why flexible capital structures are becoming increasingly important.

✅ Where Opportunities Exist in Europe

How different markets are behaving very differently in the current cycle.

EPISODE CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction

01:08 From Poland to Texas

05:12 Discovering Real Estate Investing

11:04 Early Career in Private Equity Real Estate

19:42 Distressed Debt and Market Cycles

30:11 Why the Distress Wave Never Came

42:05 Liquidity Stress in Real Estate

51:15 Building Deva Capital

57:55 Where Opportunities Exist in Europe

01:02:48 Deep Value Investing in Today's Market

01:07:10 The £500M Investment Question

And of course, I asked Michael 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 Emma Cariaga, Chief Operating Officer at British Land, to unpack what it really takes to run one of the UK's largest listed real estate businesses during a period of structural change, capital market pressure, and sector consolidation.

Emma is COO of British Land, a FTSE 100 property company with over 170 years of history and a portfolio concentrated in retail parks and London campuses. Having built her career from trainee land buyer to development director at Landsec before joining British Land, Emma brings deep operational and development experience across residential, mixed use, large scale regeneration and campus strategy, including the transformation of Canada Water into a major London campus.

In this conversation, Emma explains how real estate has fundamentally shifted from a passive, rent collecting asset class into an operational business requiring agility, data, customer centricity and active asset management. We explore why British Land continued developing while others paused, how limited supply of prime London office space is driving rental growth, and why retail parks have repositioned themselves into a 99% occupied format built around affordability, flexibility and convenience.

We also discuss the increasing importance of scale in listed real estate, the wave of M&A activity across the REIT sector, and whether smaller platforms can realistically survive in today's capital constrained environment. Emma shares insights on leadership, transitioning from being "on the tools" to operating at executive level, and why building non executive experience alongside an executive career can sharpen judgement.

Finally, we look at British Land's strategic positioning, its new headquarters move onto one of its own campuses, and what the next chapter may look like for the listed real estate sector.

Key Topics Covered in This Episode

✅ From Land Buyer to FTSE 100 Leadership

Emma's route into real estate and the lessons learned along the way.

✅ The Return of Prime London Offices

Why top quality space near transport nodes is in limited supply and delivering rental growth.

✅ Retail Parks Repositioned

How omni retailing and cost efficiency have driven 99% occupancy.

✅ Real Estate Has Become Operational

Flex products, shorter leases and a more customer focused asset model.

✅ Scale, M&A and The Future of Listed Real Estate

Why scale may now be essential in public markets.

And of course, I asked Emma 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.

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👉 http://peoplepropertyplace.com/

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/