Our presenters

Ken Livingstone is a British politician, who made constitutional history on May 4, 2000, when he was elected mayor of London—the first time that British voters had directly elected a candidate to an executive office at any level of government. He served as mayor until May 2008.

Before being elected as mayor of London, he was an active Labour Party Member by his early 20s. He was elected to the Lambeth Borough Council in 1971 and to the Greater London Council (GLC) in 1973. Between 1977 and 1981, when the GLC was run by members of the Conservative Party, Livingstone led a left-wing faction within Labour’s group in the GLC. 

Kersten is a partner in our Real Estate & Construction team at Grant Thornton in London. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and an expert in UK and international tax. He works extensively with UK and international investors and developers on their investments into property.

Kersten is actively involved in our Vibrant Economy initiative, in particular focussed on housing. He is using his experience and expertise of having worked across different European countries to bring ideas and focus to the issues faced in the UK, and how the wider skills of our firm can be utilised in moving forward.

Khushnama Davar leads the Digital Initiatives [DLT, Third Party Platforms, Fintech Engagements] in the global Product & Propositions Team in Global Trade & Receivables Finance at HSBC.

Her last role was as the Managing Director & Head Trade, at Standard Chartered Bank, India. She was responsible for overall Trade business including driving the P&L, strategy, sales and product management across the banks’ network in India.

She has a rich experience spanning 25+ years in Transaction Banking spanning across Citibank, Deutsche Bank and SCB/ANZ Grindlays Bank. She is a seasoned transaction Banker who is uniquely placed to offer a perspective based on her experience across different organizations and roles/experiences including country and regional roles covering India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

She holds a Masters in Banking & Finance from the University of Mumbai, is a Graduate of the Institute of Cost and Works Accountant and a Fellow of the Indian Bankers Association.

She is passionate about harnessing technology to deliver a fantastic Customer Experience and facilitating provocative conversations with individuals and teams around persistence, adding value, relationships, technology and making it happen!

She is married to Zubin and has one son. She enjoys travelling, reading, music and sports.

Konnie Huq is a British television presenter and writer. She was educated at Notting Hill & Ealing High School in London and left school with nine GCSEs and A-levels in physics, mathematics and chemistry. She studied sciences for her A-Levels, but chose to study economics at Robinson College, Cambridge and graduated from Cambridge University with a 2:1 degree.

Konnie is best known for presenting the BBC children's television programme Blue Peter, which she joined on 1 December 1997. One of her most memorable early moments on Blue Peter was visiting Bangladesh, and speaking to members of her extended family whom she had not seen for many years. Konnie has also been a celebrity ambassador for the British Red Cross, for which she recorded the video "If I had HIV, would you kiss me?" as part of a campaign against stigmatisation of people living with HIV. She hosted the West London Business Awards 2017.

Lara joined Marks & Clerk in 2012 in the electronics group. She qualified as a UK Chartered Patent Attorney and a European Patent Attorney in 2016. Since joining Marks & Clerk, Lara has had experience drafting and prosecuting patent applications relating to a wide range of technologies, including in particular cryptography, telecommunications, signal processing, machine learning, optical devices and semiconductor devices. She also assists in preparing standards essentiality evaluations for European Patents. Lara acts on behalf of clients of all sizes, from individual inventors, through to SMEs and large multinationals and has experience prosecuting applications in multiple jurisdictions including Europe, the US, China and Japan.

Lara graduated from Durham University in 2007 with a first class degree in Physics. She went on to obtain a PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2011. Her PhD involved studying itinerant electron systems under extreme conditions such as high pressure and low temperature, with a focus on resistivity and synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction measurements.

Lester has recently joined TfL as Property Director responsible for the emerging TfL development programme that is likely to see TFL becoming one of London's most active developers across a range of residential and commercial projects.

Prior to joining TFL he was at Land Securities where he headed the retail development team and was responsible for delivering several million ft2 of major mixed use projects throughout the U.K's major Cities.

Liz Peace ran the British Property Federation for 13 years before retiring in December 2014. She then embarked on a portfolio/advisory career in the field of property, politics and the built environment. This includes non-executive roles at Morgan Sindall plc, Redrow plc, Howard de Walden Estates, Turley, Good Relations Property, Holtby Turner and EC Harris.

Liz Peace is also involved as a Trustee at Peabody, the Churches Conservation Trust, the Architectural Heritage Fund and the property industry's charity, LandAid, where she is a Chairman. Before her BPF life, She spent 27 years as a civil servant in the Ministry of Defence working on an exciting range of projects from nuclear safety, to defence finance, public inquiries and land acquisitions. For the latter 10 years She helped set up and then move towards privatisation the defence research establishments which became QinetiQ plc. In 1985 she pioneerd the principle of part-time working for women in the MOD. In 2017, she’s been appointed Chair of the Old Oak and Park Royal Corporation.

Lord Soley is a Labour Life peer sitting in the House of Lords since 29 June 2005. He is sitting on the EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee. He previously sat in the House Of Commons as MP for Ealing Acton and Shepherd's Bush, Hammersmith and Hammersmith North.

Lord Soley was Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party from 1997 to 2001 and Campaign Director of Future Heathrow from 2005 to 2010, an organisation dedicated to the expansion of Heathrow. From 2004 to 2016 he was chair of the trustees of Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal, now renamed the Mary Seacole Trust.

Lord Karan Bilimoria CBE, DL is the founder and Chairman of Cobra Beer Partnership Limited and of Molson Coors Cobra India. He is the Founding Chairman of the UK India Business Council, a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London, a former Chancellor of Thames Valley University (now the University of West London); he was the youngest University Chancellor in the UK when appointed. 

In 2014, he was appointed as the 7th Chancellor of the University of Birmingham and was the first Indian born Chancellor of a Russell Group University in Great Britain. Karan was Senior Non-Executive Director of the Booker Group PLC, the FTSE 250 Company of Booker Prize fame from 2007 – 2016; he is one of the first two visiting entrepreneurs at the University of Cambridge; he is a founding member of the Prime Minister of India’s Global Advisory Council. In 2006, Karan Bilimoria was appointed the Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea, making him the first ever Zoroastrian Parsi to sit in the House of Lords. In 2008 he was awarded the Pravasi Bhartiya Samman by the President of India.

He is an honorary fellow of Sidney Sussex College Cambridge and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Judge Business School, Cambridge University. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Ernst & Young and graduated in law from the University of Cambridge. He is also an alumnus of the Cranfield School of Management, the London Business School and the Harvard Business School.  In 2015, Karan Bilimoria was appointed President of the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA).

Luke Davies is a top UK award-winning Sandler Trainer and coach that brings over twenty years experience in sales and sales management development. In 2006 Luke set up the Sandler London City office and has worked with a vast array of different businesses. And in 2008 he was awarded the UK Franchisee of the year award by Sandler head office.

In 2001 he co-founded the international software company Workshare and helped to grow the company from zero to annual revenues of £12 million and 3,500 blue chip customers. In 2006 Workshare was awarded the Microsoft Global Independent Software Vendor of the Year award, customers include 85% of the largest law firms worldwide, numerous FTSE 100 companies and Fortune 1000 companies.

In 2010 Luke co-founded the software company SkyDox and raised two rounds of equity funding and exited at SkyDox in March 2011 with a personal ROI of 400%.

His passion revolves around helping people who do not necessarily feel comfortable in the selling role become effective in both sales, sales management and client development. Over the years he has helped many leading companies including Experian, Travelzoo, Encyclopaedia Britannica, UKN Group, Cision, Informa, Trustpilot …the list goes on.