ULI UK announces new co-chairs for Young Leaders programme

JLL's Alexandra Jezeph and The Collective's Chris Roche have been named Young Leaders co-chairs

May 22, 2018

The Urban Land Institute UK (ULI UK) has announced Alexandra Jezeph and Chris Roche as the new co-chairs of its highly successful Young Leaders programme, a 350-strong network of real estate professionals aged under 35.

Alexandra Jezeph is an associate director in the City Investment and Development Team at global real estate advisors JLL, where she has been since 2008. Jezeph advises on commercial investment opportunities and mixed-use redevelopment proposals across London, with a specific focus on the City, and is also a non-executive director at the liberal conservative think-tank Bright Blue, which she has been involved in for the past eight years.

Chris Roche is acquisitions director at The Collective, UK-based co-living pioneer with a wealth of experience in acquisitions and development gained from positions in both the US, at firms such as California Landmark Group and City Ventures, and in the UK at Value Retail. In addition to his role at The Collective, Roche also collaborates with Sofar Sounds, a music events start-up company, and has volunteered for various community projects in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Together they bring shared knowledge of investment, development, planning, culture and policy that will be crucial to broadening ULI UK's knowledge base. As Young Leaders co-chairs, Jezeph and Roche will play a key role in driving membership growth.  The duo will also focus on promoting diversity and inclusivity in the property industry, ensuring ULI UK leads by example.

You can listen to Alexandra and Chris discussing the future of the ULI and broader real estate issues on a Propcast hosted by Andrew Teacher, managing director of Blackstock Consulting.

Alexandra Jezeph said: "ULI UK is a multi-disciplinary organisation, so we embrace wide engagement with members representing specialisms from across the sector. As co-chairs, what we really want to do is grow the ULI profile, expand our focus to outside London and major cities and broaden the reach of the organisation. Fundamentally, it is about developing the conversations that we're already having, and seeing if we can bring audiences that we haven't spoken to before, into the debate."

Chris Roche said: "I think the biggest value ULI has is that you can create a panel of people from all the different worlds within property, bringing different professionals of varying experience together. Current education drives people down very specialised paths, such as finance and investment, urban planning, or local government, so you get situations where people sit on separate islands and they don't know how to talk to each other. We want to change that."

Chris Choa, chairman of ULI UK said: "The ULI is focused on promoting inclusive diversity and knowledge-sharing as ways to help tackle the problems of the future, and Chris and Alexandra's joint appointment as co-chairs marks the beginning of a very promising chapter for the Young Leaders programme. Their combined experience and optimistic visions for the future of the industry are hugely exciting, and will no doubt spark forward-thinking conversations."