Estates Gazette Property Podcasts

What do corporate occupiers really want? Workplace guru behind Google's first office reveals all

Despina Katsikakis, the workplace consultant behind the first iteration of the Google office design, has been appointed by Cushman & Wakefield as global head of occupier business performance.

Katsikakis has over thirty years’ experience advising corporate occupiers including Microsoft, Unilever and BP on the impact of workspace on business performance and is currently advising the team delivering Sir Stuart Lipton’s 22 Bishopsgate, set to be Europe’s first major WELL-certified new-build project.

 

The former architect has joined Cushman & Wakefield in a full-time role to help the firm’s occupier clients - as well as the building owners and landlords seeking to attract them - understand how real estate can be repositioned to drive performance and productivity.

 

Speaking exclusively to EG, Katsikakis said: “The expectation is that I link the real estate world to the corporate occupier world and bring them into a closer, iterative relationship.

 

“The war for talent is shifting the priorities for corporate occupiers from short-term cost reduction to long term business value, primarily around attraction, retention and engagement. That’s why I think this role is very opportune.”

Gravis Capital Partners re-brands as Gravis

 

Gravis Capital Partners, the specialist investment management group with in excess of £2bn funds under management including GCP STudent Living, has rebranded as Gravis.

EG spoke to chief executive Rollo Wright and founder and fund manager Tom Ward on the future of the new platform and future opportunities for its student housing fund GCP Student Living.

EG People: “I was a banker who knew what a building site looked like” - Shillaw

Lynda Shillaw described the Lloyds banking job in the aftermath of the 2007 financial crash, as the "most toxic environment I've ever worked in" and recalled, "it was hard, the public hated us, the politicians hated us, the regulator was still trying to work out how it would regulate the industry."

Shillaw was headhunted to lead the real estate lending team at Lloyds in 2010. "They wanted someone with credibility and a rapport with clients. I was a banker who knew what a building site looked like.”

"It was the biggest professional stretch I had made".

Three years in, in late 2013 she had worked out that she didn’t want a career as a Banker and was appointed to head the Property Fund Management Business at, SWIP, which was the UK's fifth-largest real estate fund management business, owned by Lloyds bank.   

Seven weeks in she was told the business was being sold. "All I had to pitch to investors was a strategy that I had been developing. I'd inherited something that had been there forever."

Three years ago, Shillaw moved on to her current job, as the divisional chief executive of MAG Property in 2014, an £840m turnover business which runs four airports and a property company.

Shillaw, is a trained accountant who "fell into property by accident" and had overseen the property businesses of BT and The Co-operative estates, before joining SWIP.

"Property is my heroin" she said.

 

F45 gyms: fuelling the fitness fire

Australian fitness group F45 has 507 outlets around the world, with six sites already up and running in London and a further eight in the pipeline.

All this has been achieved in just three years and it has aggressive expansion plans for the UK.

EG speaks  to global sales director Luke Armstrong on the groups plans for the year ahead and the UK fitness industry.

CBRE's Marco Rampin explains the drivers of debt and borrowing across Europe

CBRE's head of debt and structured finance for Europe Marco Rampin explains the drivers of debt and borrowing across the continent, and how the UK compares.

TECHTALK: Blockchain 101 for real estate

Ragnar Lifthrasir is one of the leading experts when it comes to blockchain and bitcoin for real estate.

The founder of the International Blockchain Real Estate Association (www.ibtcrea.org) and blockchain platform Velox.RE answers the simple and the more complex questions about what blockchain really means for real estate, how it can be utilised, what you should look out for when choosing whom to work with, why bitcoin is better than ethereum and much, much more.

Look out for the full interview on www.egi.co.uk/news soon.

And if you want to hear more from Lifthrasir, he is one of a number of high profile speakers at next month’s New York Real Estate Tech Week, where EG is media partner with US-based accelerator and organiser of the event Metaprop. Find out more at www.realestatetechweek.nyc

If New York is a little too far away, why not come to one of our UK-based TechTalk events. Find out about TechTalk Live on 15 September here (http://www.egevents.co.uk/Tech2017) and how to enter out TechTalk Academy (and the chance of £150,000 of investment) here (www.egi.co.uk/news/techtalkacademy)

London Assembly member Nicky Gavron explains what the mayor must do to boost off site modular housing

London Assembly member and planning committee chair Nicky Gavron explains what the London mayor Sadiq Khan must do to boost off site modular house building. 

Cast's Mark Farmer explains how modular housing can help London

Cast Consultancy chief executive Mark Farmer explains how modular offsite house building can help solve London's housing crisis. 

Extraordinary people: Julian Evans

In the first of this new series of podcasts from the team at EG that looks at the extraordinary things that people in property do, we meet Julian Evans, head of healthcare and hotels at Knight Frank, by day, intrepid explorer whenever he can.

For Evans, it all started with the marathon, then a six-day run across the Sahara, then from that extreme heat to the extreme cold of the North Pole. So far, Evans has climbed the equivalent of 132 Shards stacked one on top of another.

In this recording, we find out exactly how he is able to travel around the world taking part in these extreme adventures while holding down the day job, his most fearful moments and the lessons he has found most applicable to working life.

 

TECHTALK RADIO: The story of a start-up, why we should stop being so hard on the property sector and a journey to the money

In this week’s episode of TechTalk Radio, Emily Wright and Samantha McClary talk to Built-ID founder Savannah De Savary about what it’s like to launch a start-up and why competitions like the EG TechTalk Academy with PiLabs and CBRE can offer more than financial support on what can be a very lonely journey; Metaprop founder Aaron Bloc calls in from New York City to chat about the flow of capital into tech; and LA-based Fifth Wall founders Brendan Wallace and Brad Greiwe share their story on raising a $212m fund and reveal plans for Europe.

While listening to TechTalk Radio is great, coming along to one of our TechTalk events is even better.

Find out about next month’s TechTalk Live event here (http://www.egevents.co.uk/Tech2017) and how to enter our TechTalk Academy (and the chance of £150,000 of investment) here (http://www.egi.co.uk/news/techtalkacademy/)