Our presenters

Michael is a chartered town planner who started his career with Haringey Council before joining the Greater London Authority planning and regeneration team where he advised the Mayor strategic planning, design and regeneration projects including the Opportunity Area Planning Frameworks for Park Royal (2010) and Croydon (2012). He led the Mayor’s regeneration programme for Croydon and Tottenham for two years between 2012 and 2014. Then in 2014, on behalf of the Mayor, Michael established the OPDC which came into existence on 1 April 2015 where he is now Director of Planning.

Michael Portillo gained a first class degree in History at Peterhouse, Cambridge. When he left Cambridge he worked for a year at a shipping company. He moved to the Conservative Research Department in 1976, where he spent three years. At the General Election in 1979 he was responsible for briefing Margaret Thatcher before her press conferences. For the next two years he was special adviser to the Secretary of State for Energy. He worked for Kerr McGee Oil (UK) Ltd from 1981 - 1983. He contested the Birmingham Perry Bar seat at the 1983 Election.

Michael returned to politics as a special adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Nigel Lawson) and in December 1984 won the by-election in Enfield Southgate and represented the seat for thirteen years. As a member of the Government, he was a whip, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Social Security, Minister of State for Transport, Minister of State for Local Government and Inner Cities; and as a Cabinet Minister was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for Employment, and Secretary of State for Defence.

Later he also turned to journalism, writing about walking as a pilgrim on the Santiago Way, and working as a hospital porter. He had a weekly column in The Scotsman. He had a three part series for Channel 4 about politics Portillo’s Progress, and a programme in BBC2’s Great Railway Journeys series, which was partly a biography of his late father, and radio programmes on Wagner and the Spanish Civil War. He has also made a number of television programmes for BBC2.

Dr Michelle Ryan is a Senior Research Fellow in Psychology at the University of Exeter, UK. She is a leading scholar in the field of gender discrimination in the workplace. Together with her colleagues she has uncovered the phenomenon of the glass cliff, whereby women are more likely to be placed in leadership positions which are risky or precarious.  Research into the glass cliff is represented in top academic journals, industry publications, and in the media including BBC, CNN, ITV, and all major British Newspapers.  Dr Ryan currently holds the Jantina Tammes Chair at the University of Groningen.

Neil established Metropolitan Workshop in 2005 and is experienced in leading complex mixed-use residential masterplans, collaborating with many of the UK’s best housing practices. 

During his career, he has designed major urban projects and buildings in sensitive contexts of conservation, heritage and greenbelt, in locations such as Durham, Oxford, Cambridge and London.

Neil serves on a range of Design Review Panels, including DCCabe, Croydon, Newham, Harrow, and provides Urban Design for London with training programmes for Local Authorities on principles of Urban Design.

In the past 30 years, Nic Pryke has gone from a cabinet maker to the Design Director at London’s leading workplace design and build company, Oktra. He understands the value of workplace design, as it has such an impact on people’s lives and how they work. Nic’s design team are responsible for the design of a hundred million pounds worth of workplace environment construction each year.

Nic has shared his experience of the industry at numerous conferences and talks, including Mix Inspired; Mix Round Table; WeWork; Work 2.0 and The Lawyer. His written features include Workplace by Facebook, The Times and Sky.

Nick Belsten, London Director, WSP | Indigo

Nick has over 20 years’ private practice planning experience and leads WSP | Indigo’s London Planning Consultancy team following the acquisition of Indigo Planning by WSP. His track record is focussed on Greater London, providing strategic advice to a wide variety of private and public sector property owners, developers and occupier businesses. His portfolio includes high-profile redevelopment and regeneration schemes, including King’s Cross Central, London Dock, Kensal Rise, the Francis Crick Institute, UK Dementia Research Institute and Google’s European HQ. Nick is a Commissioner for the London Urban Transformation Commission

Nick Swanson is Senior Policy Officer for technology at the Greater London Authority. He leads on City Hall’s programmes to support tech companies of all sizes to grow and innovate, access capital and reach their market. Prior to working at the Greater London Authority, Nick was a founder of a startup himself.

Chairman of Slough Estates plc since 1976 (Chairman and Chief Executive 1976-96). Sir Nigel is non-executive chairman of Bovis Homes, non-executive director of Howard de Walden Estates and Chairman of Trustees of Historic Royal Palaces. He is a former non-executive director of Barclays Bank, Kingfisher and Cookson Group, and was a Member of the Committee on Corporate Governance (Hampel). He has been Lord-Lieutenant for the county of Buckinghamshire since 1997. 

He past away at aged 67, (22 Sep 1937 - 21 Oct 2005)

Having originally trained as an architect, and written an undergraduate thesis on the development of London suburbs, Nigel has run a digital media consultancy – Decipher - for 20 years.  He launched Chimni in 2017 having realised how much data about his home was owned and controlled by other people, and how unprepared even he was for the digitisation happening in the property industry.

Olly is the CEO of Almond.org, a new environmental impact platform and app that rewards people for becoming more responsible consumers. He has 12 years experience in the FMCG sector. He founded the health drink brands Alibi, What A Melon, FACT and Waterbomb advisory. Founding 2015 UK B Corp cohort. He co-founded VITL, in the med tech space. Co-founder of Liquid Fusion, private label drinks NPD for brands inc. Itsu & Hotel du Chocolat. Recipient of Virgin VOOM award from Sir Richard Branson. He has also advised for Diageo, SAB Miller and Tesco PLC.