David is a respected hotel advisor with over 30 years experience.  He is Consultant Senior Advisor to CBRE Hotels, Senior Consultant to HotStats and Senior Advisor – Growth & Expansion to Resident Hotels.

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A graduate of Bournemouth University in Hotel Management, he trained in a leading London five-star hotel before working in sales and marketing with Sheraton.  David is a Fellow of the Institute of Hospitality and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and is frequently invited to address and participate in hotel industry conferences.

David spent his hotel consultancy career with TRI Hospitality Consulting, a leading boutique hotel consultancy firm, in which he was Deputy Managing Director and co-owner.  TRI was acquired by CBRE in 2013. 
 
Now operating as an independent hotel advisor to select clients, David brings a great depth of industry knowledge and client advisory experience to them, having advised established multinational hotel brands, companies, entrepreneurs and new concept and brand builders, across all sectors of the market and across many regions and advising hotel owners on the most appropriate structures and operating agreements to strike as well as being called on to act as an expert witness in disputes.

James Devitt is Managing Director and founder of Herald Hotels ltd. He has worked in the hotel, leisure and hospitality sector since 1982 with chartered surveyors William Hillary, Humberts Leisure and Druce Hotels, brewers Greene King PLC and accountants PKF Hotels where he was Director of Hotel Property Services. Prior to forming Herald he was Executive Director at CBRE Hotels responsible for all hotel valuation, consultancy and professional services across EMEA.

 

Past highlights include worldwide valuation assignments such as The Savoy Group, Orient Express EMEA and the Dorchester Group. Large hotel portfolios include, in the UK, the Marriott portfolio, and in Europe, the MSREF Intercon portfolio and the Moor Park Accor portfolio. In London James has been involved with various developments and redevelopments including the The Connaught, The Savoy and The Marriott Edition. Acquisitions and agency transactions of note have included Fairmont Monte Carlo, CIT Thistle, and Principal Hayley. James has also, over the years, analysed many of the UK’s leading golf resorts including all those operated by Marriott and De Vere, and The Belfry. In the budget hotel sector he has advised on portfolios of Holiday Inn Express, Travelodge, Jury’s Inn, and Premier Inn assets and also a wide range of leading boutique and country house hotels.

Vedrana is the founder and CEO of Ciel Capital, a principal, JV equity and asset management platform with a core focus on hotels. Vedrana also co-founded Stow-Away, a design led apart’hotel concept. The first Stow-Away opened in Lower Marsh, Waterloo in 2018.

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Vedrana covers a wide range of areas including Asset Management, Finance Structuring and Modelling, Fundraising and Legals.

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Prior to Ciel, Vedrana was a Corporate Finance Manager at Pacific Investments and Managing Director of IPIN Global Capital and BridgePoint Ventures UK Ltd.

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Vedrana graduated with a first class degree at the Sorbonne, Paris, followed by a Masters degree in London, where she got a distinction.

A French national who was born in the former Yugoslavia, Vedrana is fluent in five languages.

Vedrana is a member of The Monopoly Network, The Hospitality Real Estate Group and the Hotel Property Network.

Andy Porter - Coutts

Andy began at RBS working initially as a Bank Manager and then as an Area Director before joining Coutts in 2005.  Andy then moved across to Commercial Banking, combining his leadership experience and existing relationship management skills with an intensive credit coaching programme. 

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Andy began with a portfolio of clients across a range of sectors, Andy followed his love of finer things in life and began actively seeking out Food & Beverage and Hotel & Leisure operators and is now Business Development for Hotels & Healthcare.​

James specializes in commercial investment property. Currently James is focusing on development finance solutions, annuity income, ground rents and added value deals.

 

He previously worked at a number of investment companies and prior to this he was an investment advisor at three major agents.

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James was a co-founding director at the Entrepreneurs Property Fund. James has asset management experience and strong contacts in the investment sector.

Paul is a chartered surveyor and an equity partner at John Rowan and Partners and heads the Hospitality team. He has excellent experience across the hospitality sector, having worked with many of the leading owners, operators and brands. He works with client teams to develop opportunities and help maximise the value in their assets.

 

He and the team provide a range of services including technical due diligence, capital budgeting and planning, project management, cost management and building surveying. They work with clients to help ensure that capital and maintenance expenditure achieves the best outcome.

 

Paul led the John Rowan and Partners team which was integral in the delivery of the hospitality and retail facilities at St Pancras Eurostar terminal and also led the team involved in the project and cost management of the £200m refurbishment of The Savoy. Other development and renovation projects have been delivered for leading brands including Four Seasons, Intercontinental, Fairmont, Marriott, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Hyatt, Hilton, Premier Inn and Holiday Inn Express.

 

Paul has worked on secondment with IHG and with Greene King. Prior to joining John Rowan and Partners he lived in Dubai working on the Burj Al Arab Hotel development with Atkins.

Una Barac is the Founder and Executive Director of Atellior. Atellior is an architecture and interior design studio focusing on hospitality and residential projects in the UK and across Europe. During her fourteen years at Scott Brownrigg Una headed up the Hospitality Sector and lead London and Croatian teams to design and deliver a number of successful projects.

 

Park Plaza Nuremberg, Germany is the latest project to open and is currently shortlisted for Mix Award. Both Park Plaza Nuremberg and Art'otel Mitte, Berlin were lead by Una, opened in 2016 and have enjoyed great publicity in a number of hospitality and design industry leading publications, including Sleeper Magazine and Wallpaper*.

 

In 2012 Una led the award-winning design of the “Shaded White” Bedroom which won the Sleep 2012 Best Hotel Room Design Award against strong international competition. In addition, she led the team which designed the Park Plaza Histria Pula, which was a finalist at the 2013 European Design Award, for Best Hotel Spa. In 2015, Scott Brownrigg Croatia office opened in five short years 7 hotels and resorts in the Adriatic region – Sheraton Dubrovnik Riviera, Karisma Adriatic Beach Resort, Boutique Hotel Mlini, Park Plaza Histria, Park Plaza Arena, Courtyard by Marriott Sarajevo, public areas of Marriott Residence Inn. Three of the aforementioned hotels were selected as finalists for the Adriatic 2015 Best New Hotel Award.

Philip joined AccorHotels in September 2017 to head the Development Team and lead the growth of all AccorHotels brands in the UK & Ireland through Hotel Management Agreements and Franchising.

 

Prior to joining AccorHotels, Philip spent 10 years at IHG where he spent the later 5 years as Development Director for the UK & Ireland. Philip was instrumental in securing contracts for Luxury InterContinental hotels in Dublin and Jerusalem along with large Holiday Inn projects in London, most notably Holiday Inn London Kensington 708 bedrooms, Holiday Inn Heathrow Airport, 433 bedrooms, Holiday Inn London Wembley 340 bedrooms and Holiday Inn London West, 225 bedrooms.

 

Prior to IHG, Philip worked in the following disciplines for other major international hotel brands, Sales & Marketing, Revenue Management, Distribution and E-commerce. Philip holds a BA (HONS) degree in Economics and Public Policy from Leeds Metropolitan University where he was also active in student politics. In his spare time, he enjoys sports, spending time with his young family and supporting his wife’s charity work.

Richard specialises in the hotel sector and complex mixed-use tourism /  cultural projects.

He headed up the UK Consultancy team at Avison Young specialising in the Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure arenas. 

Each year the team, split between London and Edinburgh, looked at over £1bn of capital developments in the hospitality sector. The team worked on around 20% of the new openings in the UK franchised space each year.

Richard has extensive experience managing tourism and cultural projects for a number of public and private sector organisations. He has managed a number of large strategic tourism and market research projects for GVA including work with English Heritage, Kew Gardens, Scottish Development International and Scottish Enterprise. He has a degree in Geography, a Masters from the London School of Economics, and an advanced certificate in Market and Social Research Practice. He is a Heritage Lottery Fund Mentor.  

Jerry is Head of Business Development at McAleer & Rushe Contracts UK Ltd. Having worked in the Construction industry for over 50 years specializing in the Hotels sector, he has worked with many of the leading owners, operators and brands in the industry. Joining McAleer & Rushe in 2014, the company has further expanded their client base with greater concentration of projects in London and the regions, and consolidating their position as one of the leading design & build contractors in the UK.

 

He previously worked as Business Development Director at John Sisk & Son for 27 years with the responsibility of establishing the company as a major hotel refurbishment and new build contractor in the UK.

 

Jerry is also a very keen golfer and formed the Hotel Golf Society in 2014. Career highlights include converting the GLC County Hall into a Marriott and Premier Inn Hotel, new build construction of the Four Seasons Canary Wharf Hotel, refurbishment of the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington and the Jumeirah luxury apartments at Grosvenor House Park Lane.

Richard is a Corporate partner and heads up the Hotels & Leisure Group.  He is a recognised leading expert in the Hotel & Leisure industry and top ranked for his work in Legal 500. He has extensive experience of advising UK and international Owners, Developers, Funders and Operators on numerous hotel related projects around the world.

 

Richard's recent experience includes advising clients such as Yotel, PPHE, RBH Hospitality Management, Invesco, Vivion Capital Partners, Crimson Hotels, Burger King, Café Rouge, Bella Italia and glh hotels. Clients describe him as "very sensible, practical and commercially-minded".

In his role as Director of Business Development, Justin supports the growth of the company's managed hotel portfolio globally.

 

Justin has over 20 years of experience in the hotel property sector and in particular experience in international consultancy, having worked at several advisory and consultancy firms providing feasibility studies, operator searches, buy-side advice and valuations.

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He has also worked at several privately-owned companies involving sourcing, underwriting acquisitions and asset management, including eight of Topland's Hallmark Hotels. Most recently, while at London & Regional, he was involved with sourcing and underwriting acquisitions and due diligence support regarding assets to be added to the Atlas Hotels portfolio.