who is property's next game-changer?

Heading into the fourth year sponsoring our Game-changer award at North West Business Insider’s Property Awards, we reflect on its intentions and previous winners, and look forward to seeing who will be this year’s winner from yet another strong shortlist of the region’s forward-thinkers.

Game-changer is a relatively new category, borne out of Alliance’s own values of pushing barriers, keeping a can-do attitude to the most complex yet rewarding projects, and being passionate about our region’s growth. This award recognises the region’s greatest sector personalities, those that quietly (or loudly) go above and beyond the remit of their role and challenge the status quo to improve the commercial property industry in the North West. Think ‘determined’, ‘creative’, ‘resilient’ and ‘energetic’.

Identifying a game-changer

This year will be the 4th year identifying our region’s disruptors for positive change, individuals or teams that have consistently gone the extra mile to make things happen in the North West. These colleagues, clients or service providers will have come from the wide breadth of property expertise – local authorities, planners, architects, lawyers, contractors, developers, agents, designers and more.

The award is an opportunity to highlight those that are going to make a difference for years to come, and are already underway impacting key projects and development and growth for the region.

Following in their inspirational footsteps

We have had some very worthy winners, including: Ged Couser of BDP, Dave Roscoe of Manchester City Council and Michelle Rothwell of Watch This Space, all of whom continue to make impact on the region’s growth in their own way.

Ged Couser, using his unparalleled knowledge and expertise in medical facilities, led an incredible task force to deliver the Covid-19 emergency NHS Nightingale Hospital in Manchester, in less than two weeks. Conversion of a Grade II Listed conference centre, equipped with 750 beds, 1,520 data points, 90 nurse by sinks, 104,608m data cables and 3,400Lm walls, took a team of 1000 professionals on site working 24/7 under ever-changing guidelines during the pandemic. Ged’s relentless attitude saw this unprecedented project through, making a huge difference for the region’s NHS service provision at this crucial time.

Dave Roscoe is another well-known figure in the region’s property industry, and is highly respected for his vision for the city region and its delivery. As Manchester City Council’s planning development manager, his peers described him as having “worked incessantly to improve the fabric of Manchester” and never losing sight of his ambitions for greater inward investment and the city’s residents themselves.

Michelle Rothwell founded Watch This Space in 2016 and had delivered 14 projects when she was nominated for game-changer last year. Embedded in the future ambitions of the next generation of property talent in the region, Michelle is also a trustee of We Love MCR charity, helping disadvantaged young people achieve their goals through practical and financial support.

Who knows no bounds?

On 16^th May, we will find out who the worthy winner is when they are announced at the highly-anticipated industry awards event, held at Manchester Central.

And so, looking forward to the next event this month, the shortlist for 2024 is another extraordinary line-up. We are delighted to see an individual, a pairing and a team in this year’s shortlist. It highlights the combination of power and improvement one person or a team can have on a town, city or region through hard work and dedication.

• Colin Sinclair, Sciontec is chief executive of Knowledge Quarter Liverpool and KQ Liverpool and its commercial spin-out, Sciontec. There is no stopping Colin in his quest to grow Liverpool’s next generation of workspace and laboratories, strategically connecting with partners and organisations to maintain his momentum.
• Emma Payne and Ella Woodward at Muse have been recognised for their protagonist parts in the firm’s delivery of their flagship office building, Eden in Salford. Hailed as a trailblazing sustainable workspace, the partnership between Ella and Emma has helped forge a new era of building design and net zero carbon operations in the region.
• Regeneration Brainery has demonstrated fantastic team work, tenacity and industry collaboration to bring forward opportunities for young people from under-represented backgrounds, helping identify careers in the built environment and further grow talent in the sector. The not-for-profit organisation has built an incredible alliance of partners to create an award-winning academy, working with over 4,000 young people in the UK each year.

All that’s left to say, is Good Luck to the nominees in the Game-changer category and all the award categories this year. We look forward to being there and celebrating the sector’s top talent.