Pooja Agrawal

Chief executive, Public Practice

Agrawal is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Public Practice. She is an architect and planner who worked as a public servant at Homes England and the Greater London Authority. She previously worked at private architecture and urban design practices, including Publica and We Made That. She co-founded social equality platform Sound Advice and co-published Now You Know, a compendium of 50 essays exploring spatial and racial inequality. She is a trustee at Open City, a fellow at the Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose and a fellow at the RSA. In 2023, Agrawal received the renowned accolade of the AJ100 Contribution to the Architecture Profession Award and the People and Skills Torchbearer of the Year at UKREiiF. Over the past five years, she has been nominated for the Planner’s Woman of Influence a number of times, most recently in 2022.

Rokhsana Fiaz

Mayor of Newham

Fiaz was elected as mayor of Newham in May 2018. Since her election, she has been leading a transformative and radical agenda in the London borough, reflecting a series of manifesto commitments to address inequality and poverty, invest in young people to widen opportunities, embed community wealth building as the economic approach being adopted by the council, increase participatory democracy and respond to the climate emergency. As part of an ambitious programme of scaling up council housing delivery in the borough, she is leading one of the most ambitious genuinely affordable housing programmes in London through a number of significant regeneration schemes. Under her leadership, Newham also became the first council in the country to make the health, happiness and wellbeing of its residents the key indicator of economic success. As an advocate for racial justice and equality, Fiaz was awarded an OBE in 2019 for services to Black and minority ethnic communities in the UK.

Kirsten Hewson

Partner & head of real estate, Shoosmiths

Hewson is head of Shoosmiths’ real estate division, responsible for driving forward the strategy and vision of one of the largest real estate practices in the UK. As divisional head, she manages more than 400 legal advisers, including UK-wide teams in core real estate, construction, planning and real estate litigation. Hewson joined Shoosmiths in 2003, became head of the planning team in 2010 and was elected to Shoosmiths’ partnership council from 2015 to 2018, before joining the board as divisional head of real estate in 2018.

Samantha McClary

Editor, EG

McClary has almost 20 years’ experience in real estate and business journalism, covering a wide range of topics. Alongside making sure EG delivers the best, most helpful, most accurate and, of course, most interesting content to EG’s readership across all platforms – print, online and audio – she also plays a leading role in enabling and delivering a more diverse environment for the real estate community through EG’s REWIRE and tech initiatives. A keen chair and regular wearer of too bright trousers, she seeks to help keep panel discussions and events lively with audience participation and insightful questioning

Thomasin Renshaw

Chief development officer, Pocket Living

Renshaw leads the design, development, delivery and customer care teams at Pocket Living. Pocket is an innovative developer delivering homes for local Londoners on modest incomes at a 20% discount to market prices. Renshaw is also non-executive director of Broadway Living RP, Ealing Council’s subsidiary delivering council housing. Previously, she led Grosvenor’s major two-acre mixed-use scheme in Mayfair: the South Molton Triangle. Prior to that, she was development director for Muse, where she led large, complex, mixed-use urban regeneration projects in London and the Thames Valley. Renshaw graduated from UCL (BSc Astrophysics) and the University of Reading (MSc Surveying). She is a Fellow of RICS.

Cath Shaw

Deputy chief executive, Barnet Council

Shaw is deputy chief executive of Barnet Council. She is responsible for the council’s extensive housing and growth programme, environmental services and major commercial relationships. She is a director of the council’s joint venture company with Related Argent to deliver Brent Cross Town – a park town for future London including 6,700 new homes, 50 acres of green space, workspace for 25,000 people, three schools, a new station and other amenities and infrastructure. Shaw sits on the London Councils economy board and the new London Architecture sounding board, and chairs the West London Economy and Skills Directors Group.  She joined Barnet in 2013 from Harlow Council, where she was assistant chief executive, responsible for growth and regeneration. Prior to that she was a senior civil servant, undertaking a variety of roles including as deputy director of the social exclusion unit responsible for children and young people’s issues. Shaw stepped down as a board member of the Peabody Trust in 2019 on completion of her maximum term of appointment, remaining on the development and Thamesmead committees until March 2022. 

Lucy Wood

UK climate solutions leader, Stantec

Wood has more than 17 years’ environmental planning and engineering consultancy experience. She has worked nationally and internationally advising on environmental, socio-economic, health and sustainability issues. Wood has provided training to the Royal Town Planning Institute, Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment, and numerous councils on climate change, and advises on the path to net zero. Her experience spans strategic planning and project-level impact assessment for projects ranging from nationally significant infrastructure to sustainable new communities, estate regeneration and the extension of London’s Tate Modern. A regular event speaker and author, Wood was voted a Woman of Influence in 2021 by The Planner. She’s also a keen mentor, nurturing the next generation through various mentoring schemes and internal graduate programmes.