With 45 years of experience, Alan has an extensive track record, having held senior positions at City & West End Developments and London & Edinburgh Trust.
Alan is a founder of Generation Estates and a founding Partner in Generation Partners LLP where he serves as the Chief Executive Officer. Alan has led Generation Partners since its formation, with a particular emphasis on developing new partnerships with investors. This has encompassed the creation of the Europa Generation Student Fund, and joint ventures with Ares Management, PGIM and Crosstree Real Estate Partners.
Between 2010 and 2015, Alan led a successful joint venture with The Carlyle Group which developed, operated and sold a £530m portfolio of high-quality PBSA assets. Prior to this, Alan led three successful joint ventures with The Blackstone Group that developed, operated and sold a portfolio of 2,500 student beds for c. £420m.
Gareth has over 40 years’ real estate industry experience and has specialised in purpose-built student accommodation for the last 20 years. Gareth is a founder of Generation Estates and a founding Partner in Generation Partners LLP where he serves as the Chief Operating Officer. Today, Gareth is responsible for running all of Generation’s various entities, whilst also overseeing any commercial leasing within the portfolios.
Prior to Generation, Gareth worked with various high-profile mixed-use development companies undertaking projects throughout London. He started his career at St Quintin in the City of London and was subsequently a Partner of Grimley JR Eve.
Gareth hold an honours degree in Land Management from the University of Reading and qualified as a Chartered Surveyor in 1985. He is currently on the board of Yarmouth Harbour where he is Commissioner.
Nick Kinder has over 20 years of experience in real estate and banking. Nick co-founded the Europa Generation Student Fund and Generation Partners LLP with Alan and Gareth and has been responsible for acquiring and financing circa 10,000 beds in the UK and Ireland for the Europa Generation Student Fund, Ares Management, PGIM and Crosstree Real Estate Partners.
Before entering the PBSA market in 2008, Nick worked in the European Real Estate Finance business at Deutsche Bank for seven years and before that at DTZ, focusing on European Real Estate funds, corporate finance and strategy.
Nick holds a BSc from Bristol University, an MSc from Bayes (Cass) Business School and a Certificate of Business from Columbia Business School in New York.
Rina Patel has over 20 years of experience in financial services, predominantly with Real Estate Funds; Rina also spent several years with PE FOF Pantheon Ventures with responsibilities spanning finance, compliance and risk, dealing closely with the Investment and Operations teams.
Rina spent a number of years post-qualification with KPMG in their Property Tax department before moving into Real Estate Funds. Rina is an ICAEW Chartered Accountant (FCA) and holds a Financial Planning Certificate.
Florentina is Head of Investment Management at Generation Partners responsible for end-to-end transaction management, including business planning and financing. Florentina has over 10 years of real estate industry experience and has specialised in purpose-built student accommodation since 2011.
Before joining Generation, Florentina worked in the portfolio management team at iQ Student Accommodation focusing on acquisitions and value add initiatives and was closely involved in delivering the sale of the 32,000-bed portfolio to Blackstone in 2020 for c. £4.7bn.
Florentina holds a BSc from London School of Economics and Political Science and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.
Anna Beer is the Head of Asset Management at Generation Partners and leads strategic, proactive asset management across the portfolio. Anna has over 10 years of experience in real estate brokerage and asset management and has worked within the PBSA sector since 2016.
Before joining Generation Partners, Anna worked at DWS and CBRE focusing on PBSA and Operational Real Estate, European Real Estate funds, CRE brokerage and valuations.
Anna holds a BA and MSc from Loughborough University, an MSc from the University of Reading and is a qualified Chartered Surveyor (MRICS).
Rachel heads up the Development team at Generation Partners overseeing planning, product development and delivery activities. With over 20 years of experience in property development, she has managed residential real estate projects valued at over £500m across the UK and Europe.
Her previous role was Development Director at CA Ventures, delivering over 1200 high quality purpose built student accommodation beds from acquisition to completion and eventual disposal.
Rachel holds a BA (Architecture) from the University of Malta, an MSc (Structural Engineering) from the University of Surrey and an Executive MBA from London Business School.
Paul founded and now leads the operational platform Now Student Living. Delivering the onboarding, integrating and ongoing operations of all assets in the portfolio. Managing ongoing performance across all aspects of the residential estate.
Paul started his career in student accommodation in 2004 and has extensive experience in the commercial and physical operation of PBSA. Before joining Generation, Paul was Operations Director at Liberty Living and sat on the Board during the CPPIB period of ownership, and he was central to delivering the sale of the 25,000-bed portfolio to Unite Students in 2019 for c.£2.4Bn.
Paul has also worked for several leading UK Universities including UCL and University of Sheffield.
Neil has a track record of 20 years operational management in the PBSA sector. Neil leads on ensuring strategic aims are delivered across cross functional teams. Neil’s experience incorporates change management, streamlining processes, ensuring teams meet and exceed customer expectations whilst driving informed decision making across all aspects of operational delivery.
Neil has a proven track record in ensuring sustainable growth aligned to robust operational cost management to maximise profitability.
Jackie has over 20 years’ experience leading Human Resources in the PBSA sector across the UK and Europe. Initially as HR Director for Liberty Living from 2003 to 2020, Jackie built a team to support the expansion of the people side of the business from 3000 beds to over 25,000 beds and led the transfer and integration of circa 300 operational staff to Unite Students following their acquisition of Liberty Living.
As Director of People & HR with Now Student Living, Jackie is harnessing her expertise and experience to develop an HR strategy and build a team which will support the growth of Now Student Living.
Jackie is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and holds a Masters Degree in Human Resource Management (with Distinction). Jackie is also a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership with a Level 7 diploma in Leadership and Management.
As the Commercial Director, Tom spearheads the Sales and Marketing team within Now Student Living. His focus is on the delivery of budgeted revenue and occupancy forecasts; structuring campaigns that complement the company’s investor partners’ goals.
Tom has over 10 years’ sales and marketing experience within the PBSA sector. He started his journey at Campus Living Villages, introducing sales processes across their UK, as well as at times, their US and New Zealand portfolios. He then moved over to Liberty Living where he assumed the role of Head of Sales and just prior to his appointment at Now Student Living, he was the Sales and Marketing Director at AXO Student Living where he developed and led a sales and marketing team to achieve record revenues and occupancies across their portfolio for consecutive years.
Russell Johnson is Now Student Living’s Head of Finance. Russell has over 11 years of experience in financial services, predominantly with Real Estate Funds and a UK REIT. These included UK logistics, offices, land development and more recently a student accommodation fund with circa 2,000 beds.
Russell undertook his training at Deloitte South Africa qualifying as a Chartered Accountants in 2016, providing audit and assurance services within the Financial Services division to a client base comprising of listed banks, asset back financial services companies pension funds. Russell also worked at Goldman Sachs in London post-qualification between 2016 and 2018.
Russell holds both a Post Graduate Diploma in Accounting and a Bachelor of Business Science: Finance with Accounting from the University of Cape Town. Russell is a Chartered Accountant CA (SA) and a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder and was credited with a Financial Modeling & Valuation Analyst (FMVA) Certification.
As Head of Organisational Excellence, Elise is committed to optimising processes and driving business initiatives to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and overall performance of operations. Elise’s experience in project management in both residential and commercial property sectors assist with identifying, planning, and implementing improvement opportunities and organisational transformation across the business.
Elise develops and supports the delivery of training programs and business policies and procedures to build capabilities across the organisation. Elise is passionate about facilitating sharing best practice to maintain a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
Since joining Now Student Living, Elise has led on implementing and embedding our property management system Concurrent and continues to seek solutions to optimise operations and drive business excellence. Elise’s team ensures internal and investor reporting is accurate, timely and informative, whilst maintaining validated data within the business systems.
Phil has over 20 years’ experience in Brand and Marketing. Since 2013 this has been focussed solely on the PBSA sector. His roots are in Brand, Digital & Design giving him a strong blend of creative and technical expertise.
In 2014, Phil led several key elements of the major rebranding project for Liberty Living, as well as the digital transformation of marketing communications. This created substantial savings on printed literature as well as reducing waste and the overall carbon footprint of the business.
Since joining Generation Phil has overseen the brand creation and implementation of both Here! Student Living and Now Student Living. Phil has built a team of skilled individuals specialising in all aspects of Marketing. Both brand’s social media platforms have exceeded those of industry leaders giving both brands fantastic reach and engagement.
As the Head of Facilities & Sustainability at Now Students, Martin is dedicated to ensuring our buildings not only meet compliance standards but also exude excellence in presentation while operating in the most sustainable and environmentally efficient manner possible.
With a keen eye for detail and a passion for sustainability, Martin meticulously oversees every aspect of our facilities to ensure they align with regulatory requirements and embody our commitment to environmental stewardship.
Through strategic planning and innovative solutions, Martin strives to optimise our building’s performance, creating spaces that are both functional and environmentally responsible, fostering a culture of sustainability within our organisation.