Dame Mavis McDonald, DCB (Chair)

Mavis McDonald serves as a Trustee of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Chair of the Catalyst Housing Group and Deputy Chair of the Board of Governors of Birkbeck College, University of London. She is also an Honorary Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing.

She was a career civil servant from 1966 to 2005. Under successive governments, she has worked on policy and programmes on housing, planning, regeneration, social exclusion and local government. She was Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet Office from 2000 to 2002 and retired as Permanent Secretary to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in October 2005.

She is not a member of any political party.

Peter Best, Head of Asset Management, Prudential Property Investment Managers Ltd 

Peter joined Prudential in 1981 and, working alongside the fund managers, he now leads the Asset Management teams responsible for lettings, rent reviews, lease renewals, property management  and development. He has an honours degree in Land Management from Reading University and is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

Peter is also a Director of Buying Force, PRUPIM's joint venture procurement service company with DTZ. Peter led PRUPIM's support of the on-line property investment transaction web-site, Propex, and was a Director of Property Investment Exchange Ltd until 2007 when Propex was acquired by CoStar, the commercial real estate information services group.

Prior to managing various PRUPIM teams, Peter's career developed in the landlord and tenant field as a Lease and Rent Review Negotiator and he is currently a member of the British Property Federation's Commercial Leases Sub-Committee and has represented the BPF in consultations with Government on business tenancies' reform.

Seymour Fortescue, former Chief Executive, Banking Code Standards Board 

Seymour Fortescue spent 26 years working for Barclays Bank, where he was Head of Marketing, Chief Executive of Barclaycard and Director, Personal Sector.  He was a Director of Visa International, Mercantile Credit and BACS.  Since leaving Barclays in 1991, he worked in the voluntary sector as Director of Finance and Fundraising at Imperial Cancer Research Fund and in the public sector as Chief Executive of the prevention arm of the NHS, the Health Education Authority.  In 1999, he became the Banking Code Standards Board’s first Chief Executive.  He retired in September 2006.

Seymour Fortescue has an MA in Economics from Cambridge University, an MSc in Business Studies from the London Business School and is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers. 

He is a Council Member of London University, a member of the Court of the Grocers Company and Chairman of the charity BookPower.  He is Chairman of the private sector UK Migrant Remittances Task Force set up by the Department for International Development.

David Godden, Chief Operating Officer, Land Securities Trillium

To be added.

Alan Leibowitz, Joint Managing Director, Dorrington Holdings

Alan Leibowitz has been involved in the UK property industry for over 30 years.  Dorrington, part of the Hanover Acceptances Group, is a long-term property investor in both the commercial and residential sectors, mainly in London.  The company also has an active mixed-use development programme.

Alan sits on the boards of the non-property companies within the Hanover Acceptances Group and has various other interests, including being a member of CABE’s Design Review Panel.

Martin Leigh-Pollitt, Board Member, Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation

Martin is a Board Member of Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation and Chairman of its Resources Committee.

He started his career in private practice in Westminster and holds a degree in Urban Land Administration and is a Fellow of the RICS. He went on to work in both the private and public sectors and recently retired as Head of Land & Property at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. In addition to advising ministers and senior officials on a wide range of topics associated with government policies on commercial property and land, he was responsible for landlord and tenant legislation. This included engagement with the industry in seeking to provide greater choice and flexibility through the first Code of Practice. Martin was also a member of the Bank of England Property Forum, the Valuation & Appraisal Standards Board of the RICS and the editorial board of the Estates Gazette.

He lives in Sussex where he is involved in a number of local community initiatives.

Clive Lewis, Head of SME Issues, ICAEW

Clive is head of SME issues at the ICAEW and a chartered and a management accountant. He started his career at a small firm of chartered accountants based in Cardiff working on the financial reports and tax matters of businesses from sole traders to medium sized manufacturing companies. He has worked for Coopers & Lybrand on the audit of businesses of varying sizes - from small subsidiaries of plcs to the largest utilities, and has spent 20 years in business finance roles including four years as finance director of a small electronics plc where he was actively involved in re-financing the company and restructuring its operations.

Clive was the ICAEW representative on the Government and Accountants Working Group with representatives from the Small Business Service, H.M Treasury and small business representative organisations. The group considered how small businesses might gain wider access to independent advice on business finance and how to assist SMEs improve their financial management. The ICAEW has created the SME Funding Adviser scheme to respond to that challenge.

Clive was also a founder member of the Better Payment Practice Group - a Small Business Service initiative working with private sector organisations to improve the UK payment culture and improve credit management amongst SMEs. Clive is the public authority commenting on financial and management issues covered in the businesslink.gov website and provides regular contributions on small business issues to on-line media as well as the mainstream media, including the Daily Telegraph Business Club series.

Julian Lyon, Manager, European Real Estate, General Motors

Julian Lyon is the product of the Grammar School system, having attended Guildford Royal Grammar School.  Colour-blindness prevented Julian from following his preferred career as an architect but he has worked in property since 1984, beginning on the drawing board, through building surveying, project management, development management, development agency into investment agency. After several years of investment agency experience with industrial consultancy, Henry Butcher & Co, the property markets collapsed and Juian's career diversified further, initially through corporate recovery and insolvency work, and then, as the Iron Curtain had recently come down, setting up and running a property and plant and machinery business in Poland.

Julian picked up major corporate accounts in Poland with a workload stretching across Europe and, in 1998, he returned to working from the UK with one of those corporate clients. He now works as European Real Estate Manager for General Motors, with primary responsibility for transaction management in a portfolio of approximately 13m square feet of business space, ranging from offices, dealerships, factories, warehouses and laboratories, with plenty of car parks and roads thrown in.

In 2005 Julian completed a finance-based MBA at Manchester with Distinction, alongside his day job and he has subsequently become involved in some of the issues of the day, such as representing CoreNet Global on the Commercial Leases Workinig Group and challenging the government on its plans to reduce rates relief for empty buildings.

Outside property Julian has a range of interests from sport (mostly as a spectator these days), politics (he recently stood as an independent candidate in the local elections), genealogy, music (cello and piano, although neither often nor well nowadays, and sings).  Julian has a wife and daughter and lives in Guildford.

Glenn Miller, Head of Estates, Marie Curie Cancer

Since qualifying as a Chartered Surveyor and Revenues and Rating surveyor in 1986 Glenn has held various senior property posts within both the corporate sector, with organisations such as Shell, Kingfisher, Pepsi Co and Whitbread, and in private practice managing property portfolios such as the British Rail Pension Fund.

Glenn is currently the Head of Estates at Marie Curie Cancer and was formerly the Head of Property at Help the Aged.

Glenn is responsible for all property and facilities matters at the Charity which has a mixed portfolio including hospices, shops, offices, warehouses and research the country.

Glenn is a member of the Association of Charity Shops Property Group and is an APC assessor for RICS, being in charge of surveyor training at the charity.

Joe Simons, Head of Portfolio Management, Alliance Boots Plc

Joe Simons qualified as a surveyor in 1987. He has worked in corporate retail all of his professional life, initially for Sketchley PLC where he dealt with new store acquisitions, disposals and professional matters.

Joe then joined Boots Properties where he managed the Northern Region, dealing with investment acquisitions and asset management.  He acquired many multi-let schemes occupied in whole or part by Boots group occupiers.  He was also involved in disposing of a number of these larger assets in the late 1990's.  During this time, Joe completed a Post-Graduate Diploma in Property Investment (DipProp Inv) from the College of Estate Management, University of Reading.

More latterly he has worked for the Estates Department of Boots the Chemists, in the role of Regional Estates Controller and currently Head of Portfolio Management.  His responsibilities cover the management of the occupational cost base of the business, covering 1,600 stores in the UK and Republic of Ireland.  In addition, he is also involved in managing space change at a regional level within central London

Joe is currently President of The Property Managers Association.