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A New Lease of Life… with Lesley Roberts

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​​Welcome to #ANewLeaseOfLife, a sub-series of the devcast…podcast, where you’ll be learning how experts of the build to rent and alternative investment sectors have climbed the ladder of their professional careers.

Hosted by Nick Hammond, Head of Build to Rent at deverellsmith

How does an Operating Company (Opco) evolve to continually meet their client’s and customer’s needs?

Nick invites Lesley Roberts, Partner at Allsop and residential investment maven, to join him in discussing what it takes to successfully run an OpCo. The duo talk about every impacting aspect: people, data, innovation, tech plus systems and procedures.

Lesley brings wealth of knowledge to the conversation as a well-known specialist and has been heavily involved in the evolution of build to rent in the UK over the last few years. On top of that, Lesley is Chair of Soho Housing Association, an active member of Women in Property and supporter of Real Estate Balance.

Prior to joining Allsop, Lesley was a Director at Pinnacle Group, spearheading PRS services for large scale residential landlords and investors, and has a decade of experience working with developers, housing associations and institutional investors in acquiring, building and efficiently operating large scale PRS portfolios.

With 14+ years of UK PRS experience, her expertise incorporates all facets of large-scale residential portfolio performance including product suitability, design, lettings, management, operations and strategic asset management.

She has contributed to thought leadership through both the British Property Federation (BPF) and Urban Land Institute (ULI), having toured the US studying their multi-family model and heavily involved with the second edition of the ULI’s ‘Build to Rent Guide’, and more recently appointed as the President of the UKAA – the specialist industry body for build to rent.

Lesley started her career in the hotel industry running five-star operations. Prior to working in the UK property market, Lesley worked in mining, shipping and heavy industry sectors specialising in stakeholder relations, media and community engagement in Australia.

Listen now…