Derby Development Plans 2014

FOUR of Derby’s Leading Development Figures will be presenting their development/investment plans for the next couple of years!

Event Sponsored by:                  Programme Sponsored by: 

Event Format

• 1530 – 1600; Registration
• 1600 – 1645; Networking with Wine, Beer and Soft Drinks
• 1645 – 1815; Speaker Presentations
• 1815 – 1900; Networking with Hot Food, Wine, Beer and Soft Drinks

Speakers

Rob Murfin; Head of Planning Services, Derbyshire County Council

Rob is Head of Planning Services at Derbyshire County Council. He has a long background in planning strategy, control and regeneration. He has held non-executive roles in a waste development company. In 2013 he was appointed as Director at the Planning Officers Society.

In a previous post as Planning Policy Manager at the Yorkshire and Humber Assembly he developed a number of major spatial regeneration strategies and worked on the development of several areas of national policy, including PPS4: Planning for Sustainable Economic Growth. He currently is the national chair of the Advisory Group on Waste & Resources Planning.

Adam Wilkinson; Chief Executive, Derby City Council

Adam Wilkinson joined Derby City Council as its Chief Executive in July 2009. Adam has been employed in local government for the last 29 years and in that time he has worked for eleven local authorities.  These have included district councils, London boroughs, unitaries, counties and cities.

Adam holds a BSc in Construction Management and an MBA and was President of the Association of Building Engineers from 2002 – 2003.  He is also a past Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Building.

Colin McKinnon; Managing Director, Enscite 

Colin started as Managing Director of Enscite in October 2013. He joined as the first full time employee with responsibility for establishing Enscite’s operations and developing the future growth of the organization..

Colin understands the challenges of growing new businesses. He was founder and Commercial Director of a start-up in the mobile data market in the early 2000s and has helped establish and secured investment in several technology-based SMEs arising from university research and development.

Colin joined Enscite from NERC, a leading scientific research organisation, where he was a Board director responsible for innovation and communications. Prior to that he spent several years as Innovation Director for the highly respected international engineering consultancy, Buro Happold. Colin’s early career was spent in general management with BP.

Colin is a strong advocate of innovation and is passionate about helping companies grow through leveraging advanced research and technology.

Peter Gadsby; Chairman, Ark Capital 

Peter is one of the property industry’s best known figures and in 2008 was named Property Week’s Midlands Property Personality Of The Year. His distinguished and successful career spans more than 30 years and includes some of the most successful companies in the region.

Starting out in his home town of Ashbourne, Derbyshire, Peter rapidly grew a number of development and housing companies and was involved in the acquisition of Raine Industries Plc in the mid 1980s.

He went on to form Birch Group Plc, which at its height had a turnover of £100m. In 2000 Peter sold Birch to the UK’s largest private property company, The Miller Group in a transaction valued at £35m. As part of the deal the two companies formed Miller Birch, a 50:50 joint venture to develop the ng² business park in Nottingham and various other residential and commercial property sites. ng² has since become one of the most successful commercial property developments in the Midlands.

In 2004 Peter acquired residential house builder Radleigh Group and placed it, together with his family’s existing property interests, Cedar House and Miller Birch, into a new holding company, Ark Capital.

Ark Capital, of which he is Chairman and major shareholder, has become Peter’s main holding company, although he continues to control a number of investment properties through the Ark Capital Pension Fund and Limited Liability Partnerships.

Peter’s achievements have been recognised by the University of Derby with the award of an Honorary Doctorate of Business Administration.