Plenary and Panel Speakers

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.

Hadleigh Standen

Deputy Director, Property Programmes, Office of Government Property, Cabinet Office

Hadleigh is the Deputy Director for Property Programmes in the Office of Government Property (OGP) where he has responsibility for the OGP FM standards, tools and policies and leads a team working cross government to drive collaboration and innovation in tackling the condition challenges and improving the resilience of the government estate including leading the response to the NAO and PAC on the condition of government property. Prior to this Hadleigh spent 3 years in the Government Commercial Function as part of the Strategic Partnering Programme, working with government Strategic Suppliers in the Built Environment. Before joining the Cabinet Office, he spent over 20 years working in industry where he held senior roles with a number of large FM suppliers delivering services to the public sector. Hadleigh is also a fellow of the RICS.

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.

Hannah Cheminais

Partner, Mills & Reeve LLP

Hannah has over 15 years’ experience in all aspects of commercial property acting on both investment and development transactions. Hannah’s area of expertise lies with large regeneration and development projects. Hannah has experience acting for public bodies in respect of CPO and large regeneration projects including site assembly and funding, but also on the developer side, acting for developers on JV agreements with public bodies.  Hannah is named as a “Next Generation Lawyer” in the Legal 500.

Patrick Clarke

Masterplanning Lead, UK & Ireland, AECOM

Patrick is AECOM’s Masterplanning Lead for the UK+I and has more than 30 years’ experience at the forefront of the professional debate on planning for housing and sustainable communities.

He led the groundbreaking studies of Sustainable Residential Quality in London demonstrating how urban design and placemaking could unlock more and better homes, supporting significant changes in national planning policy. He has led or contributed to a series of national guides to better planning and design including the Urban Design Compendium, Better Places to Live, Safer Places and the Irish Government’s Urban Design Manual.

Patrick has worked with a range of public and private sector clients to apply the key principles on large-scale new community projects directly relevant to the Government’s New Towns agenda. These include: Welborne Garden Village in Fareham; Ebbsfleet Garden City in Thames Gateway; Manydown Garden Town at Basingstoke; and Brookleigh (Northern Arc) at Burgess Hill.

Patrick has given evidence to Parliamentary Inquiries, been a member of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment’s National Design Review Panel and the Town and Country Planning Association’s Expert Panel on Garden City Principles for the 21st century. His contributions to Town Planning and the Social Sciences in the public interest have been recognised by fellowships of both the RTPI and the Academy of Social Science.

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.

Michael Ferris

Client Engagement Manager, Central Government & ALBs, Crown Hosting Data Centres

Michael Ferris leads engagement across central government and arm’s length bodies for Crown Hosting, a Cabinet Office partnership delivering secure, sustainable data centre services to the UK public sector. He works closely with estates and digital teams to help them make the most of the Crown Hosting Framework (RM6262) — reducing costs, cutting carbon emissions, and improving resiliency by migrating IT infrastructure out of existing buildings.

With a background in compliance, commercial operations, and public sector delivery, Michael brings a practical, client-focused approach to digital transformation — helping organisations align infrastructure decisions with estate strategy and net-zero goals.

Photo here soon…

Dave Hallam

Senior Director, Arcadis

Details coming soon….

Nigel Herbert

Head of Practice – Asset Optimisation, Arcadis

Details coming soon….

Sara 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.

Chris Law

Central Government Lead, UK & Ireland, AECOM

Chris Law has spent over a decade driving workplace transformation and lifecycle improvements across the public estate within UK & Ireland. As Regional Director at AECOM, Chris works closely with government departments to modernise property portfolios, drive efficiency and create flexible, future-ready environments that support better public services. His experience spans major initiatives across central government, with a strong focus on aligning property strategies to organisational goals and unlocking long-term value for communities. Chris brings practical insight into how innovation and collaboration can shape the next generation of public estate assets.

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