The long version
I have spent my career helping to decide what gets built and how it is positioned. My idea for an evidence-based approach to development and customers came from nine central London developments, an £18.5m sales and marketing budget and a five-year plan, on the executive board of a premium developer that won Small Developer of the Year while I was there.
I founded Conductor in 2014 because I wanted to take my thinking to a range of developers. What I did not expect was where it would lead. A client asked us to look after their customers before and after completion. We were reluctant. It turned out to be the most interesting thing we have ever done, because it is the only place in the whole process where you find out whether the promise held. I kept doing the front-end work too, the vision, the viability and the customer proposition, and it got sharper for knowing what we were finding.
In 2018 I was headhunted onto the board of a commercial housebuilder inside one of the largest housing groups in the country. Strategic land, what to build and at what velocity, design standards and loan facilities. That role taught me how large-scale strategic decisions actually get made.
Now I see development through two lenses. I know what gets promised at the start because I still help shape it, and I know what turns up at the end because I measure it.
