Two months in, a debut MIPIM under her belt and first impressions drawn. What does Melanie Leech, new chief executive of the British Property Federation really think of this industry?
“I am having a fantastic time,” she says. “What is exciting to me is working on big public policy issues and feeling you are making a difference.”
Leech checked out of the Food and Drink Federation, where she had been chief executive for a decade, in December. And she is enjoying sinking her teeth into property.
“Food and drink is a hard act to follow because that is an industry that is both economically really important and an industry that touches people’s lives in quite an emotional way,” she says. “There is a connection between the industry and its consumers which goes beyond the financial transaction. And I think it is true of property, too.”
Leech has already placed property at the heart of society, and at the heart of public policy. And you could be forgiven for thinking there is something that betrays her civil service background in those answers. They are well thought through and carefully worded, after all. But Leech is candid too, candid enough to admit she needed some persuasion by headhunters Odgers Berndtson when they called last summer asking whether she was interested in replacing Liz Peace. “Why me?” was her first reaction.
“I did not know anything about the property world,” she admits. “It did not immediately resonate with me. As I started to look at why I might be the right person for the BPF and why I might be interested in property, it grew on me. Very quickly. And as I met the various members of the BPF board, they enthused me with their appetite and engagement with the BPF and with what a fantastic industry this is. I went from not knowing very much, and being interested but fairly neutral, to being absolutely convinced that this was the right job for me and being really, really keen to get it.”
Political experience
Now she has got it, her in-tray is heaving. The BPF will be expected to respond to many of the reputational challenges the industry is facing. Then there is the small matter of the looming general election and exactly what that will mean for members.
Leech has spent 30 years in and around the fringes of government. She started her working life as a Metropolitan policewoman at Paddington Green in 1984 before changing tack and moving to HMRC four years later, working on controls at the Channel Tunnel while it was being built. She then landed the plum role of private secretary to Cabinet secretary Robin (now Lord) Butler.
In 1995 she moved to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport where she was responsible for first arts policy, then broadcasting policy. The latter saw her responsible for annual expenditure, including the BBC licence fee, of £2.2bn (the BPF’s turnover is £2.4m in comparison). It was on her watch that the embryonic cable and digital free-to-air offer was developing. By now she was dealing with Sky (“with Murdoch’s representative on the UK earth, yes”) and with the then corporate communications director of ITV’s London franchise holder, Carlton – one David Cameron, no less.
“He was both charming and clearly going places,” says Leech, with an answer that is simultaneously revealing and concealing. “His job was to be charming to me, but he was in any case very charming. It was clear that he was going to make a big name for himself. I would not have predicted he was going to become prime minister, but it was clear that he was going to do extremely well.”
After a two-year spell at the Office of the Rail Regulator, in 2001 she joined the Association of Police Authorities as chief executive. She again dealt with Cameron, by then a Conservative special adviser. So is there a relationship there to pick up again on property’s behalf?
“I would love to think that he would be excited to meet me and I think he would be surprised by quite how successful our industry is and how much it has got to offer. And he would be welcome here any time or at any of our member sites.”
From the APA it was back to the Cabinet Office as director of communications in 2004 before joining the Food and Drink Federation as chief executive in 2005.
Hers was exactly the CV the BPF’s appointments panel wanted to see. This experience of navigating Whitehall was top of the BPF’s wishlist as Odgers cast their net wide, with the board looking for a candidate who could “ensure maximum credibility with and visibility by government”.
Reputational challenges
There were other qualities the BPF was after too. An effective leader who could show vision and deliver results. A self-starter, willing to challenge the status quo. A negotiator and strong public speaker. Someone who understood the language of Whitehall. Leech ticked all those boxes.
After a decade leading the FDF she has another important quality too: the ability to deal with an industry in the public spotlight, and not always for the right reasons. From packaging to obesity to horsegate, the challenges came thick and fast. They will too in this industry.
The likes of Russell Brand and Eddie Izzard have campaigned against parts of the sector, while last year’s MIPIM UK saw protestors throng the venue, London’s Olympia, blaming Boris Johnson for selling off public land and developers for destroying communities.
“I am used to working with industries that have reputational challenges,” says Leech. “I think it is right that the property industry, just like the food and drink industry, is under scrutiny. That goes with the responsibility of creating products and delivering services that are integral to people’s lives. It seems to me reasonable as a citizen that people want to understand who is making the places they live and work in and the environments around them.”
To Leech, public perception, reputation and communication matter. “I do regard both the FDF and BPF as essentially still being in the public sector because we are working with really important public policy issues. We are just doing it from a different perspective and representing a different stakeholder group in that conversation.”
It should be no surprise that she is looking forward to May.
“Coming into a lobbying organisation in an election year is fantastic, because we are straight into communicating, talking about the industry to anyone who will listen, including a whole bunch of parliamentarians who will be there after the election, whatever the outcome of that turns out to be.”
So will the colour of the next government make a difference to property? “I think it will and it won’t,” she says. At the top level, a government of any colour ought to share our vision and to share our understanding and analysis of what the issues are that impact on that vision. So I think we will start in roughly the same place with any government, because they have challenges they need to meet and we have ways in which we can help. But in terms of how they will approach finding the answers to those challenges, there will clearly be differences.
“If you have an administration that is partly or wholly built around the Conservative party, they are going to be more likely to look for market-led solutions and less inclined to intervene in the market. If you think there is going to be a government that is partly or wholly driven by the Labour party, I have heard them talk much more about market failure, interpreted as meaning not only economic market failure, but effectively, social market failure.
“From the members I have talked to, there is no strong sense that one type of government would be greatly different to, or better or worse, than any other. The real concern and worry is about uncertainty, it is about not having a clear outcome and a government with an ability to set a clear agenda and direction.”
The BPF manifesto and future strategy
The BPF’s current strategy runs through to 2016. While its headline aims (seeking the best possible fiscal and regulatory settlement for property, supporting members and communicating real estate’s contribution to political stakeholders, the media and the public) are unlikely to change, Leech will want to ensure the next version bears her mark.
The manifesto she launched at MIPIM last week (“one of the most exhausting weeks since I joined”), bears her stamp. It sets out both the economic importance of the industry – £1tn of assets represented, £100bn contributed to the economy every year, one million people employed – and its importance to quality of life.
Expect that to be at the heart of the strategy’s next iteration, as well as a greater emphasis placed on the regions and on closer collaboration with other trade bodies – in property and beyond.
After all, Leech chairs the CBI’s trade association council and wants to use that as a platform for property to work more closely with the employers’ group and other members. “There are always issues that we are working on as a sector trade association that other industries share,” she says. “Business rates would be a great example of that. A huge issue for us, and we have distinctive points of view around it. But other sectors also have points of view that may not necessarily align with ours.
“Working inside bigger pan-industry bodies that are trying to reconcile all those different points of view is a good thing.”
CV: Melanie Leech
2005-14 Chief executive, Food and Drink Federation
2004-05 Director of communication, Cabinet Office
2001-04 Chief executive, Association of Police Authorities
1999-01 Director of operator regulation, Office of the Rail Regulator
1995-99 Head of arts policy, then head of broadcasting policy, Department for Culture, Media & Sport
1992-95 Private secretary to the secretary of the Cabinet and head of the Home Civil Service, Cabinet Office
1988-92 HMRC
1984-88 Police officer, Metropolitan Police
A typical week? “A number of miles on foot around Westminster and the City, getting out and about, seeing members and prospective new members. A lot of time visiting stakeholders too, such as government departments. I have visited Number Ten and have been into DCLG a few times now. And breakfasts, lunches and dinners, of course. So a lot of food and drink, a lot of meetings, and a lot of time with the team internally as well.”
Away from work? “Family life. My two boys are 14 and 11, and we have a dog who has managed to convince me, if no one else, that it does not get walked as well as when I do it.”
