Room151’s Housing & the LGPS Roundtable

Gemma leads Big Society Capital’s property investment and market building strategies which aim to increase the supply of good quality, safe and secure affordable housing in the UK. Gemma’s built environment experience spans impact investment, property and regeneration, consultancy and Local Government.

Prior to Big Society Capital, Gemma worked at Lendlease, a global investment, property and construction company, with roles across construction ops, corporate sustainability and urban regeneration. Gemma was previously the Head of the Lendlease Foundation and a social enterprise, Be Onsite, that supports long-term unemployed including current serving prisoners and ex-offenders into employment. Gemma’s earlier career was in environmental consultancy as a Contaminated Land and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) specialist working on due diligence for land acquisitions, remediating heavily contaminated sites and delivering environmental protection programmes for some of the UK’s largest infrastructure projects.

Gemma is a Trustee and a volunteer, has a degree and Masters in Chemistry from the University of Surrey and is a Chartered Environmentalist.

A highly regarded and well-known expert in the sector, Jonathan has worked in local government for more than 20 years, including seven years as strategic director at London Borough of Barking & Dagenham and the creator of B&D Reside, the council’s affordable housing company. Jonathan continues to support councils on the development and delivery of affordable housing and regeneration schemes. He has been a board member of Barnsbury Housing Association since 2017.

Ali joined Legal & General in 2015, having spent five years at JLL in the Capital Markets team with a focus on sourcing and disposing commercial real estate on behalf of a number of clients. Since joining L&G Ali has worked on a number of funds, executing transactions and overseeing asset management activities and most recently managed a £500m segregated property mandate with a strong record of outperformance during this time.

Elizabeth serves as Independent Investment Advisor to the Bedfordshire Pension Fund and as an Independent Research Analyst for the Greater Gwent (Torfaen) Pension Fund.   She brings a background in banking, capital markets and corporate finance to her work in investment management and portfolio analysis.  With pooling, she finds increasing commonalities between corporate finance and managing LGPS fund assets, particularly in the areas of governance, oversight, accountability and responsible investment / ESG. 

Elizabeth began her career at Lehman Brothers in New York and moved to London in the late-1990s.  Subsequently she worked at Goldman Sachs International and GE Capital, where she did M&A for its European commercial finance business.

Elizabeth is a governor of two state secondary schools in London, both of which are LGPS employers.  As chair of the Finance & Premises committee for one, she tends to regard management of LGPS funds from an employer /employee’s viewpoint as well as that of an investment professional.

Elizabeth graduated from Yale University with a BA in Comparative Literature (German and French).

John is Independent Advisor for Governance and Investment to the Pension Funds of the London Boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Haringey, and Waltham Forest. John is also Independent Chair of the Merseyside Pension Board and is  Advisor to the Nottinghamshire Pension Board.

John has also provided support to a number of other LGPS Funds and other LGPS stakeholders including Asset Managers.

John was previously Head of two LGPS Funds and a Chief Officer in local government for approximately twenty years. This included appointments as Director of Finance/Chief Finance (Section 151) Officer of both a London Borough and County Council.

John is Qualified CIPFA Accountant, holds the Investment Management Certificate of the CFA UK, a MBA (with distinction) in Public Service Management from the University of Stirling, and a BA in Ancient and Medieval History from the University of Sheffield.

John has been a frequent panellist and moderator at both Investment and Local Government Pension Scheme conferences and seminars.

Cllr Robert Johnson has lived in Brent since 1970. He is a qualified Chartered Secretary, Housing Regeneration specialist and Qualified Housing practitioner. He worked in a Minister’s Office in the Civil Service and 3 other local authorities – Brent being the last one.
He was elected in May 2018 through his campaigning activity for Citizens UK. He was a national, regional and local member of CUK institutions accruing wins on all levels across campaigns for the London Living wage and Migrants Resettlement.
Since being in the Council he has been Vice Chair of the Affordable Housing Task Group looking at how we can make more homes genuinely affordable and the Knife Crime Task Group working to help reduce the use of knives in the neighbourhood.
He currently sits on 5 committees and is the vice chair of the Planning Committee. Cllr Johnson sits on 5 other external boards – three of which are based in Brent Advice for Renters, South Kilburn Trust and Willesden New Testament Church of God. Robert is community focussed and is involved right across the borough. His passions are Planning, Housing, the Environment and supporting the BME communities In Brent.

Andrew is a founding partner of Civitas and has been in the social housing and social infrastructure sectors for more than 25 years, including being part of the team that established the housing investment company FAH. He was the adviser to and founder of The PFI Infrastructure Co, which in 2004 became the first publicly traded company in London dedicated to investment in social infrastructure. Andrew has worked in a senior capacity in the financial sector for over 30 years. He was previously Co-Head of Capital Markets at Société Générale in London. He has also been actively engaged in other property activities in the UK and internationally. He holds a BSc in Geography from Queen Mary University of London and is a Chartered Accountant.

Steven Grahame has over 20 years of institutional investment management experience and is an advisor to LGPS funds and Pools. 

Steven founded his own real estate fund management firm, investing in both private and public 
markets. Earlier in his career he was a Senior Consultant to a range of institutional and sovereign wealth funds within real assets. He has both an auditable investment track record and has successfully advised on managing, buying and selling of large commercial and residential portfolios.  

He started his career as a portfolio manager and research analyst for Knight Frank before joining investment banking for ABN AMRO and UBS becoming a portfolio manager for multi-asset portfolios. 

He is an MSc graduate in Real Estate, Economics and Finance from the London School of Economics.