Well, as they say, all good things must come to an end and after almost 15 years with Central Coop the time has now come to move on.
It has been an absolutely fantastic place to work and I have enjoyed leading the property team over this time. The highlights have been many, but includes opening over 130 new food stores and 15 new funeral homes, acquiring a new head office, undertaking JV developments to deliver a £22m, 100k sq.ft mixed retail and commercial scheme on the site of a former supermarket in Tamworth and a 92-bed Premier Inn in Chesterfield on the site of a former department store, developing a McDonalds drive thru on part of the car park of one of our supermarkets, disposing of over 200 properties raising over £135m to fund investment and Society growth and seeing the Society property portfolio grow in value by almost 50% to over £360m.
I have also had the pleasure to work with some amazing people, both within the society and external, which is one of the things I will miss the most. There are too many to name but I would like to especially recognise my team who are incredibly talented and have always supported me over the years and have delivered some amazing results (Paul Shepherd, Derek Matkin, Christian Gregory, Glyn Jenney, Lisa Dobson and Steve Smith).
I am now looking for a new challenge and therefore if you know of anyone who is looking for a highly motivated property professional and business leader, please let me know!
