Waheed Nazir

Chairman
Arden Cross

Waheed has over 20 years of experience in planning, development and regeneration. He has held senior positions at Birmingham City Council, and more recently was appointed as the Non-Executive Chairman of Arden Cross Limited. He also advises public and private sector clients on regeneration and development projects across the UK. He is a visiting Professor at Birmingham City University and in 2017 was awarded an honorary Doctorate by Aston University. In October 2020, Waheed was awarded a Fellowship from the Academy of Social Sciences and in November 2020 was announced as the Property Personality of the Year for the Midlands. In 2019, he wrote and edited a book titled Regenerating Cities, which explores how leadership, vision and partnership working has shaped the development of UK cities over the last 30 years. Through this book he brought together some of the UK’s leading figures in the development sector, each providing their own unique and personal insight into their journeys and roles in leading some of the country’s biggest projects, including London 2012, the development of King’s Cross, estate renewal in London, and the rise of Manchester and Birmingham. He is passionate about helping young people grow and develop to unlock their potential. This has included establishing a number of programmes to provide mentoring, bursary initiatives, internships and graduate programmes in the built environment profession.

Fiona Fletcher-Smith

Chief Executive
L&Q

Fiona has been L&Q’s Chief Executive since 2020. With over 30 years’ experience in the housing sector, Fiona has worked in a variety of voluntary and public sector roles including advising homeless people in Dublin, housing management, development and regeneration, strategy and policy development. 

Fiona was previously L&Q’s Director of Development and Sales, spearheading a £5.1 billion development programme. Whilst in this role, Fiona led on our development and strategic land programmes, including landmark projects such as the 10,800-home Barking Riverside development. She also oversaw the group’s expansion beyond the South-East and delivered change programmes to improve both the efficiency and diversity of our Development and Sales function. 

Prior to joining L&Q, Fiona was Executive Director for Development, Enterprise and Environment at the Greater London Authority (GLA). As part of their senior management team, Fiona was responsible for overseeing the delivery and implementation of key strategies such as the London Plan and overseeing the operation of the Mayor’s powers in relation to significant planning applications in the capital. 

Fiona is the current chair of trustees at the Centre for London, helping the capital’s think tank to meet their charitable objectives. Between 2023 and 2025, Fiona was Chair of the G15 group of London’s leading not-for-profit housing associations, which provide around one in ten homes for Londoners.

Sir Howard Bernstein

Chief Executive
Manchester City Council

Richard Upton

Chief Executive
U+I

Richard is a creative entrepreneur and patron of the arts, who is passionate about quality of place, architecture, heritage and provenance. Over the course of his career, he has established, built and sold four property investment and professional companies and developed more than six million square feet of mixed-use real estate.

Pioneering Mount Anvil in 1991, Richard delivered 5,000 student bedrooms and regenerated several award-wining social housing projects. In 1998 he co-founded Cathedral Healthcare and Cathedral Group PLC, nurturing the latter to become a market-leader in public-private partnership developments and building a pipeline of over £2bn.

In 2014, Cathedral merged with Development Securities, which ultimately became U+I in 2015. U+I is a listed public company with a development pipeline of >£11.5bn. Together with U+I’s Chief Executive Matthew Weiner, Richard is a driving force behind the strategic direction of the company, whose vision is to create long-lasting social and economic change for communities and sustainable value for shareholders.

Faraz Baber

Operations Director - Midlands & South East
RPS

Faraz Baber is the Operations Director for Planning at RPS Group covering London, South East, Midlands and the North of England. RPS was founded in 1970 and is a leading global professional services firm which employs c. 5,500 staff. Faraz is a dual qualified chartered town planner and chartered surveyor; he currently serves as a member of the British Property Federation’s Planning Committee and, as the former chair of the RICS Planning Policy Panel, he also advises RICS on current planning policy issues. His specific areas of planning reform interest and expertise include the evolution of Community Infrastructure Levy and more recently helping to provide technical input into the proposals for an Infrastructure Levy. Faraz provides both strategic and technical expertise to planning projects and over the duration of his career, he has successfully worked on a wide and varied caseload of large and complex schemes across England.