Speakers & Facilitators
Chair
Sharanjit Leyl
Sharanjit Leyl is an experienced broadcaster with 25 years presenting on international news channels, including BBC World News and Bloomberg TV. She has anchored Newsday and Asia Business Report from the BBC's Singapore studio but has also anchored BBC programmes from London, filed reports for radio on the BBC World Service and written for BBC news online.
She has interviewed many of the world’s top political and business leaders. keeping audiences engaged and entertained with conversations taking place on stage or online. She‘s moderated discussions at some of the world’s most high profile events at the United Nations, the ADB and other global summits, and also for the corporate world.
A resident of Bath, in 2024 Sharanjit became Chancellor of Bath Spa University and she is active in many initiatives within the city.
Speaker
Oli Henman
Global Coordinator, Action for Sustainable Development
Oli is the Global Coordinator of Action for Sustainable Development and he also serves as one of the Organising Partners of the NGO Major Group linked to the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. He has considerable experience in strengthening civil society participation and governance around the world. He supports the engagement of community organisations and national coalitions in the implementation and follow-up of the SDGs, using People’s Scorecards for national accountability. In his previous role at CIVICUS he led key advocacy on the SDG negotiations and campaigns. Prior to CIVICUS, he was Head of Partnerships & International at NCVO; he was also a co-drafter of the Council of Europe’s ‘Code of Good Practice on Civil Participation’. He is half-Brazilian and started his career working on participatory budgeting in the cities and rainforests of Brazil.
Oli is also a Councillor for Bath & North East Somerset Council
Speaker
Alex Ely
Founder, Mae Architects
Alex Ely founded Mæ in 2001. He has led the practice in establishing an international reputation for innovation and excellence. Alex balances working for architecture and civil society advising government and its agencies on the built environment. He has been responsible for award winning schemes from masterplans to cultural buildings, housing to health care as well as for the Mayor of London’s Housing Design Guide and numerous best practice publications for CABE.
Alex sits on the RIBA's Housing & Planning Expert Advisory Group and is a former Mayor's Design Advocate, CABE Built Environment Expert, a member of the GLA’s and LLDC’s Review Panels. He is a frequent public speaker at national and international urban and design forums.
Speaker
Paul Simons
Chair, World Heritage UK
Paul Simons trained at the Architectural Association in London in the 1970’s and became a Lethaby Scholar at the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. He has spent his career in heritage management, cultural tourism and the work of preservation trusts, including the Vivat Trust, Clevedon Pier, Brunel’s Bristol Old Station, Arkwright Society and currently Cleveland Pools Bath. He has worked in tourism in Bristol, Norwich and in 1994 moved to Bath as Executive Director of Tourism, then being seconded as Project Director of ‘Thermae Bath Spa’, Bath’s Millennium Project in 1998.
Since 2003 Paul has been in consultancy and is currently the Chair of World Heritage UK. In 2013 he was appointed Secretary General of the Great Spa Towns of Europe, inscribed in 2021as a serial transnational World Heritage Site. He is a member of ICOMOS UK, the Railway Heritage Trust advisory board and a trustee of the Oxford Literary Festival. He is currently advising on World Heritage nominations in the UK, Spain and the Caribbean. Until 2015 he was a Director of McCurdy & Co, historic timber framed building specialists who built the replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London.
Speaker
Susan Denyer, FSA
ICOMOS UK
Susan is a World Heritage Adviser for ICOMOS (the International Council on Monuments and Sites) and until July was Secretary of ICOMOS-UK (the International Council on Monuments and Site, UK). She has been involved in the evaluation and state of conservation of World Heritage sites outside the UK and has undertaken missions for ICOMOS and UNESCO in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Speaker
Alexandra Warr
Head of International Strategy, Historic England
Alexandra has represented the interests of England’s heritage sector nationally and internationally for nearly two decades and is responsible for providing strategic advice and direction on international heritage (and related) policies, working closely with national and international governments and agencies, and international bodies such as the European Union, the Council of Europe and UN bodies such as UNESCO.
Alexandra is a cultural historian who trained in archaeology, art history, conservation of historic buildings and garden history before entering English Heritage in July 2001. She was a founding member of ICOMOS Cambodia and a member of Chatham House with a specific interest in the role of culture and identity in international relations, domestic policy and society as well as the role of cultural heritage as a catalyst for inclusive growth and social stability within the sustainable development framework.
Speaker
Christina Sinclair MSc, MA, BArch, IHBC
Chief Executive, Edinburgh World Heritage Trust
Christina is the Director of Edinburgh World Heritage – the independent charity dedicated to the proactive conservation of the beautiful city for the benefit of all. From her background in architectural design (University of Edinburgh) and a Masters in European Urban Conservation through years dedicated to positively and proactively managing change in historic places across major public sector roles and leading major private sector restoration projects - she is a passionate ambassador and practitioner for the value and the power of Edinburgh’s outstanding historic environment. Her work ranges across active on-site conservation work, inclusive engagement, climate emergency solutions, and historic city management. She is also a United Nations Women UK CSW68 delegate, speaker, and writer.
Speaker
Keith Bradley
Senior Partner, FCB Studios
Keith is Senior Partner at Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, based in London and Bath Studios, with Offices in Manchester and Belfast.
Keith has an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bath and is Chair of the Cabe National, London and Oxford Design Review Panels and now a Design Council Ambassador and Design Review Chair. He has led numerous FCBStudios projects including over 60 that have received RIBA Awards, along with Civic Trust, Housing and Sustainability Awards. Keith led the 2008 RIBA Stirling Prize winning Accordia Housing Project in Cambridge, and has worked on urban residential, regeneration and masterplanning schemes in London and throughout the UK.
His public and education buildings include museums for the RAF at Hendon and Cosford, academies in London, and university projects including the UCL London Centre for Nanotechnology, Manchester Metropolitan University's Business School and Student Hub and the Manchester School of Art, which was shortlisted for the 2014 Stirling Prize. He is currently leading the design for a major new 165m urban campus for Ulster University in Belfast. Keith is a guest critic and lecturer at a number of Schools of Architecture in the UK and a frequent speaker at conferences in the UK and abroad. Keith's projects are widely published in books and magazines and he is a regular contributor to publications and industry journals.
Speaker
Andrew Grant
Founder, Andrew Grant Associates
Andrew formed Grant Associates in 1997 to explore the emerging frontiers of landscape architecture within sustainable development. He has a fascination with creative ecology and the promotion of quality and innovation in landscape design. Each of his projects responds to the place, its inherent ecology and its people.
He is known for a creative approach to ecological / sustainable landscape design and the integration of landscape with engineering and architecture to create distinctive contemporary places with a strong ecological character.
He has been involved in all scales of development from sub-regional planning of National Parks, strategic planning of new towns and green infrastructure strategies through to the design of particular landscape spaces or components. Andrew has worked on a number of high profile award winning projects and has collaborated with some of the top architects and engineers in the world.
Speaker
Aoife Houlihan-Wiberg B.Sc. (Hons.), B.Arch., M.Phil. (Cantab.), Ph.D. (Cantab.), RIBA
Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering, University of Bath
Aoife Houlihan-Wiberg recently joined The Department of Architecture and Engineering at The University of Bath in early 2023 having previously held the position of Professor of Architecture, Chair of Research in Architecture at the Belfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment at Ulster University, Belfast, UK since 2019. She returned to the UK after working for 10 years at The Research Centre for Zero Emission Buildings and The Research Centre for Zero Emission Neighbourhoods in Smart Cities at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. She is a Chartered member of The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), graduated as an architect from Cardiff University and completed her M.Phil. and PhD Degree in Architecture from the University of Cambridge. She is UK National Expert in the International Energy Agency (IEA EBC) Annex 89 - Ways to Implement Net-zero Whole Life Carbon Buildings (2023-28).
Speaker
Dr Monia del Pinto
Vice-Chancellor Independent Research Fellow, Loughborough University
Monia is a Doctoral Prize Fellow in the School of Architecture, Building, and Civil Engineering, developing research on urban form and disaster risk within the DAEDALHUSS Pilot Study (Designating All Encompassing Disaster-risk Assessment on the Layout of Historical Urban Streets and Squares).
With a PhD in Urban Planning and Disaster Risk Reduction from Loughborough University, and an MSc in Architectural Engineering from Universita’ degli Studi di L’Aquila (Italy), she was trained in the UNESCO International Training Course on Disaster Risk Management for Cultural Heritage at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto (Japan). Monia is active in the area of Disaster Risk Management For Cultural Heritage, operating in synergy with a network of international and UK academic and non-academic partners.
Speaker
Professor Elena Marco
Pro Vice-chancellor and Head of College of Arts, Technology and Environment, University of the West of England
Elena is internationally recognised as a strategic and transformational leader in teaching and learning, known for her continued commitment to student success, as well as for her positive influence on colleagues. She is committed to equity for all and takes particular interest in the advancement of women and Black, Asian global majority groups in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. She also leads the sustainability portfolio for the University where she chairs the Sustainability Executive Committee ensuring that sustainability considerations are embedded across the University's teaching, research, campus operations and civic engagement work.
Elena's architecture and built environment career spans industry and academia, beginning at Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios when she was completing her final architecture thesis project where she raised to Project Architect before pursuing an academic career in academia at UWE Bristol.
Speaker
Professor Georgie Gough
Professor in Education for Sustainable Development, University of the West of England
Georgina Gough is Professor of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and PRME lead for UWE Bristol. She is also the coordinator of the South Wales and South West of England Local PRME Network. Georgina coordinates a cross university knowledge exchange for sustainability education (KESE) and supports academics to incorporate sustainability into their teaching, learning and professional practice. She works in partnership with colleagues, students and external stakeholders to embed sustainability across higher education and to share good practice both internally and externally. Georgina is a member of the national Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence Network (CATE-NET) coordinating group and is programme leader for UWE Bristol’s MSc Sustainable Development in Practice. Georgina helps to lead work within UWE Bristol on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is actively involved in city-level work to achieve the SDGs. She co-authored the chapter on SDG 11 for the 2022 Measuring Report on SDG progress in the UK by UN Global Compact Network UK.
Speaker
Jonathan Smales
Founder & CEO, Human Nature
Jonathan is founder and CEO of sustainable development foundation Human Nature.
A former director and international trustee of Greenpeace, Smales sees development as a powerful pathway to a sustainable future.
Through Human Nature, Smales works with architects, engineers and designers to improve the way buildings, spaces and infrastructures are conceived utilising bio-based materials and emphasising renewable energy.
His flagship project The Phoenix has recently received planning approval to transform a former industrial site in Lewes into the most sustainable neighbourhood in the UK, according to Human Nature.
Facilitator
Pepper Barney
Founder + Managing Director, BiBO Studios
Pepper is a co-founder of BiBO, architect and masterplanner with a post-graduate specialism in urban regeneration. Previous project experience included working on strategic housing allocation sites as well as smaller rural brownfield infill sites for private developers. Recently, her work has focused on town centre regeneration.
Pepper co-founded BiBO to explore more inclusive modes of architectural practice and consequently developed an “urban room” in Wiltshire intended to gain a deeper understanding of commercial, economic, social, and political contexts which influence the making/un-making of place. Her background in architecture and urban design as well as engagement strategies uniquely places her to convert qualitative into quantitative data, acting as translator between engagement and design.
Facilitator
Lucy Barron
Heritage Director, BiBO Studios
Having spent 17 years at Donald Insall Associates, Lucy is an accredited conservation architect and heritage advisor who has worked with private, public, charity and commercial clients in the repair, reuse, and reinterpretation of redundant or underused historic buildings to ensure their continued survival and use. Lucy’s expertise as both an architect and historic buildings advisor, as well as her experience in engagement, makes her uniquely placed to research, understand, and translate the value of heritage spaces and places into strategic visions, masterplans and built forms.
In addition to her work at BiBO Lucy currently sits as a heritage expert and advisor for the Bath Preservation Trust, Design West Design Review Panel, is an occasional lecturer at Bath Spa University, Bath University, UWE, and Oxford Brookes and co-founded Architecture Is, an urban design group encouraging conversations around the built environment in Bath.
Facilitator
Rob Delius
Associate Director, Head of Sustainability, Stride Treglown
Rob is an award-winning architect and Head of Sustainability at Stride Treglown. In 2021 Stride Treglown became the 1st AJ100 practice to become a B Corp, thereby committing to be legally accountability to balance profit and purpose.
His work has specialised mainly in residential and mixed-use developments. He is passionate about sustainability and placemaking and has led a number of initiatives in Bath and Bristol which have promoted action on climate, biodiversity and health. His 2022 climate installation won AJ Collaboration of the Year and this year he instigated and led an international action around biodiversity loss. He has been sustainability advisor to the RIBA Southwest awards and has been the winner of multiple RIBA design competitions.
Facilitator
Dr Harriet Shortt
Head of Visual Engagement, BiBO Studios
Dr Harriet Shortt also works at the University of the West of England (UWE) Bristol Business School, as an academic and researcher in the field of spatial change and user experience. Harriet has 17 years’ experience in researching and working with organisations exploring space, place, and the material world of work. Her expertise is in qualitative research methods including visual, arts-based approaches to understanding user experiences of placemaking. Harriet is often invited to comment on spatial change and working practices in the media and her research has been published in international journals and won awards for research excellence. Harriet is passionate about user experiences of buildings, places, and facilities and believes that successful placemaking encompasses an awareness of cultural shifts, diverse needs, innovative communications, and a sympathetic understanding of people and their everyday lives.
