Plenary and Panel Speakers

Saurabh Bhandari

Director, Property Delivery & Transformation

Office of Government Property, Cabinet Office

Saurabh Bhandari was appointed Director, Property Delivery and Transformation, within the Office of Government Property (Cabinet Office), in May 2024.
Saurabh leads strategic initiatives to modernise and optimise the Government Property Portfolio, with a particular focus on transforming property investments and assets into catalysts for innovation & growth, that create public value.
Saurabh leads the drive to improve the condition of the government estate. He is responsible for the ongoing improvement of facilities management in government buildings, including modernising infrastructure to enhance safety, energy efficiency and operational effectiveness across the public sector. As a precursor to transforming assets and investments, he will also provide leadership in using data and analytics to enable decisions across the government estate.
Having trained as a Chartered Architect and a Programme manager he brings multi-sector experience across real estate, social and economic infrastructure. Saurabh has extensive experience at senior positions on high-profile, national and international property programmes in a career spanning across multiple market sectors and both public and private investment led development programmes.
He is a Fellow of the Association of Project Management and a graduate of the Major Project Leadership Academy at Oxford University.

Mark Bourgeois

Chief Executive

Government Property Agency

Mark was appointed CEO of the GPA in October 2024. He is an established corporate leader with over 30 years of strategic and operational real estate experience across asset management, investment, development and operations. Mark was previously Managing Director UK and Ireland at Hammerson plc, Executive Director at Capital & Regional plc and Interim Corporate Director City Development at Liverpool City Council. He studied Industrial Economics at Nottingham University and began his career in Audit at KPMG.

Mark Chivers

Government Chief Property Officer

Cabinet Office

Mark joined the Cabinet Office as Government Chief Property Officer in January 2022.
Mark is responsible for providing senior, strategic leadership for the whole cross-government property function. He works with a wide range of senior stakeholders within government and in the wider public sector promoting the intelligent use of property to deliver better public services at lower cost to the taxpayer.
Mark provides strategic leadership for the Government Property Function, and holds senior leaders accountable to the Government Functional Standard. He leads on major change programmes, supporting the delivery of better and more integrated public services, overseeing – among others – the Places for Growth programme and supporting the regional growth agenda.
Mark has 20 years experience at Board level in both the private and public sectors, most recently as Director of Estates Engineering and Energy at Boots UK, but has led teams across Property, Marketing, Procurement, Operations and Transformation in Walgreens Boots Alliance businesses.
He is also a Non-Executive Director at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Lynda Rawsthorne

Government Head of Property Profession

Cabinet Office

Lynda Rawsthorne was appointed Government Head of Property Profession and Director, Property Capability, Sponsorship & Standards, in August 2023.
Lynda is head of the Government Property Profession, the community of property professionals across government. She provides professional leadership across a diverse range of government departments and arms-length bodies which deliver the government’s property ambitions.
Lynda is responsible for the Government Property Strategy and the Government Property Functional Standard. The strategy sets out the government’s plans for a public sector estate for public benefit, ensuring it enables the best possible public services, is efficient and sustainable and supports the government’s levelling up ambitions. The Functional Standard sets expectations for how government property is acquired, managed and disposed of.
Lynda has over 25 years’ professional experience across the property lifecycle including valuation, managing estates as well as delivering transformational and construction-based programmes. A Fellow of both the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the Association of Project Management, Lynda is a graduate of the Major Project Leadership Academy at the University of Oxford.

Session Speakers

Peter Buist

Partner

Purcell

Peter is the regional partner for the East UK and has over ten years’ experience of delivering award winning projects.
Experienced in contemporary design and new build projects, Peter specialises in the design of innovative learning, teaching and research buildings and has delivered a number of complex buildings for university institutions. Peter enjoys meeting and collaborating with the variety of people involved in his projects, from local community volunteer groups and corporate stakeholders, to school children and specialist consultants.

Andrew Dobson

Partner

Purcell

Andrew studied designing for sensitive sites, reflecting vernacular materials, culture, and sustainable design, particularly design-for-climate. Coupled with his experience at Purcell, this developed into a passion for the conversion of historic buildings for new sustainable uses, and the construction of extensions and new buildings in historic and sensitive settings.
Andrew’s experience at Purcell lies in complex refurbishment and conversion of listed buildings, primarily in the public sector. In particular, Andrew has key experience in integrating complex services systems into his projects. His designs make use of existing building features where possible to provide passive solutions for long term sustainability, and also thoughtful and discrete integration of climate control for museum spaces.

Sarah Humber

Commercial Specialist and Projects Director

NISTA

Sara is a senior practising commercial lawyer working as a Commercial Specialist and Projects Director within the Expert Advisory Team in the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority.  Sara is leading the implementation of the Social Infrastructure Roadmap which is part of the 10 Year National Infrastructure Strategy.  She is also the project lead in NISTA for the New Hospital Programme and a high-risk reviewer.  Sara has led the delivery of a number of major infrastructure programmes in Government, including as the Programme Director for a 1.5 billion school rebuilding programme for Welsh Government using the Mutual Investment Model (a revenue funded PPP model).

Earlier in her career Sara worked in private practice where she acted for private and public sector clients and funders on major PPP projects across the education, health, waste and social housing sectors.

Sara is a strong advocate for applying systems thinking to investing in infrastructure and driving long term collaborative contracting with industry to facilitate sustainable growth in the UK.

Ron Lang

Regional Director, Project and Programme Advisory

AtkinsRéalis

Ron is a Regional Director and Chartered Management Consultant at AtkinsRéalis, specialising in sector transformation. He delivers advisory services to public and private sector clients, with a focus on transforming the way they deliver capital programmes and portfolios. Ron has been on long-term secondment to NISTA since October 2024, supporting development and delivery of the Social Infrastructure Roadmap. Prior to joining AtkinsRéalis, Ron was Chief Technical Officer at the Construction Innovation Hub; a £75m, government-funded research programme focused on Industrialisation, Digital Transformation and Outcome-Based Decision-making. Through this role, Ron played a central role in the development of UK Government policy including the Infrastructure and Project Authority’s Transforming Infrastructure Performance programme and the Construction Playbook.

Terry Stocks

Director Strategic Programmes

AtkinsRéalis

Terry is the UK and Ireland Strategic Programmes Director for AtkinsRéalis. He has worked in both the public and private sectors managing large organisations and delivering projects across wide social and economic infrastructure asset classes. Before joining AtkinsRéalis, Terry was the Estates Director for the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) with responsibility for the capital delivery and operational maintenance and management of the MOJ’s estate. Terry has led many key government initiatives, driving construction industry productivity and modernisation. Terry led the UK Cabinet Office (IPA) BIM mandate, chaired the cross government ‘modern methods of contracting’ group and was a digital workstream lead in the Cambridge Universities centre for digital built Britain. Terry continues to be an industry leading figure and innovator, developing and introducing innovative approaches for client delivery and revenue creation. Terry has been awarded an MBE for his services to construction innovation.

Stephanie Walters

Sector Head Central Government

AtkinsRéalis

Stephanie brings 17 years of experience at AtkinsRéalis to her role as the National Head of Sector for Central Government. She plays a pivotal role in supporting government clients to align strategic estate planning with departmental objectives to develop, maintain, and operate agile, fit-for-purpose facilities. A Chartered Building Surveyor by background, Stephanie has overseen complex multi-disciplinary technical delivery across Central Government, Education, Local Government, and Commercial sectors. Her approach centres on creating sustainable, future-ready environments that empower occupants and enhance public service outcomes.

Speakers, agenda and times may be subject to change