NRGS Global
Chairman of the Board
Sir Tony Baldry is Chairman of NRGS. A former UK government minister and parliamentarian, he brings senior public-sector, institutional and banking experience. His focus is governance, institutional credibility and senior relationships rather than day-to-day execution.
Group CEO
Nick Wallis has spent more than four decades creating, owning and building businesses across retail, property, finance and public markets. His career has been defined by an ability to bring together design, technology, manufacturing and finance to create businesses of substantial scale, with a consistent emphasis on quality, efficiency and exceptional perceived value. He began as Merchandise Director of Wallis Fashion, the eponymous, publicly quoted, vertically integrated manufacturer-retailer, majority-owned by his family since its flotation in 1935. In the early 1980s, he owned and rolled out Benetton's UK and US businesses. Having already co-founded and financed his own Formula One team, he took Luciano Benetton to Monaco and subsequently helped create the Benetton Formula One team. His experience in Formula One developed a lasting interest in precision engineering, materials science and manufacturing tolerances — disciplines that now help inform NRGS's approach to modern methods of construction. His retail interests, including Amber Day, a publicly quoted company in which he held a controlling interest, grew to approximately 1,000 stores. The principles of industrial-scale production, systemised operations, strong branding and delivering exceptional value remain central to his business philosophy. In property, he co-owned FSM plc between 1985 and 1991 and, alongside Irvine Sellar, his business partner of twenty years and the developer behind London's iconic Shard, helped build it into one of the UK's ten largest property companies, with a development record extending to millions of square feet. Their partnership developed into a close family friendship, with Sellar becoming godfather to Wallis's son, Daniel. In the United States, Wallis co-owned the Vista Centre in Orlando, comprising some 300 villas, 12 hotels and a shopping centre developed in joint venture with Disney. The transaction also began his professional relationship with Peter Young, now NRGS's Head of Development. His involvement in social housing extends back thirty years. He founded, owned, financed and operated SHARE Ltd, a social housing provider which at its peak owned approximately 130 homes. Its board included Alan Scott and Alex Rayner, with David Kingsnorth as CFO and BDO as accountants. Several of the key people shaping NRGS today have therefore worked together across successive businesses for decades. Other ventures included Kookai; Eureka, a master-planned resort in the Bahamas on a beach ranked by National Geographic among the world's ten best, which he conceived and planned before stepping away; and biotechnology, reflecting a career spanning multiple industries and international markets. For Wallis, NRGS represents the convergence of these experiences: the scale and operating disciplines of retail, the engineering precision of Formula One, the commercial understanding of property and finance, and three decades of direct involvement in social housing. His philosophy is that successful businesses should create opportunity and aspiration at every level — for their employees, their partners, their customers and the communities they serve. His creed for NRGS is simple: it should be where dreams are born and made, for the people who build the homes as much as for those who live in them.
Co-CEO Housing
Alex Wallis is a career international retail and operating executive whose experience maps directly onto NRGS’s ambition to run an industrial operating platform rather than a conventional developer. Senior roles include UK Retail Director at Gap and The Body Shop, Visual Director at Marks & Spencer and Joint Managing Director of Warehouse. At Alshaya she built The Body Shop into the group’s number-two brand behind only Starbucks; she then joined Starbucks, leading a UK organisation of roughly 25,000 people before reaching Global Vice President level as the No. 2 executive in the EMEA leadership team. Her strengths — repeatable systems, multisite operations, brand, customer experience and execution at scale — are precisely what industrialised housing requires. She and Nick have worked together for approximately 46 years.
Ex-CEO Housing
Phil Woolas was a British politician and businessman based in London and Manchester. Phil came to public attention as President of the UK National Union of Students in 1984. He worked as Politics Producer for BBC Newsnight and C4 News before joining the GMB union as a national official. He was elected to Parliament in 1997 and served for 14 years, nine of them as a government minister, including as Minister of State for Local Government, Environment and Immigration. In 2010 he co-founded Wellington Street Partners and went on to advise a wide range of clients in the Modular Housing, Infrastructure and Investment sectors. He chaired a housing first charity with a portfolio of around 800 homes and served as CEO of NRGS Housing UK.
Sales Director
Lee Ealham is a central figure at NRGS. Before his property career he was a professional footballer and later Head of Operations for Citibank in South East England. He has originated a substantial proportion of NRGS’s current pipeline, is a member of the Professional Footballers’ Association and an approved developer with the PGA. Introduced to Nick Wallis by Graham Harle, he was instrumental in adding McLaren Construction as a Tier 1 contractor. His role spans pipeline origination, commercial relationships and the mobilisation of senior delivery capability.
Development Director
David de Massey is Development Director of NRGS and one of the most important figures in the group’s development activity. A chartered surveyor whose earlier career includes DTZ and JLL, he sits at the centre of both NRGS’s funding relationships and its pipeline. He introduced prospective funding of up to £6 billion from Delancey and Evermill, and has originated a substantial number of high-value property opportunities for the group — including in Cornwall and South London — alongside a range of intellectual-property opportunities. He also brings a long-standing and trusted relationship with Alan Scott of Ian Scott International, reinforcing the group’s prime real-estate reach.
Chief Financial Officer
David Kingsnorth has worked with Nick Wallis as CFO for more than 40 years, giving NRGS financial continuity that a newly assembled team could not reproduce. The relationship began after he was recruited from Ernst & Young by Gerald Ronson of Heron — then a development partner of Irvine Sellar and Nick Wallis — placing him within the institutional property network from which much of Nick’s career emerged. He brings four decades of institutional memory across financing structures, property, operating businesses and market cycles.
EX COO FD Charterhouse
Angus’s career includes leading auditing and management roles at well-known names such as Deloitte, Morgan Guaranty Trust and Grant Thornton. He also spent over 20 years at Charterhouse Bank, Charterhouse Group and Charterhouse Securities, including Finance and Operations Director at the last-named for nearly a decade. Over the last 20 years, Angus has advised numerous financial sector clients in a freelance capacity, and has also taken on director roles at Herald Investment Management and MacArthur & Co.
Head of Government Affairs
Gareth Cross is Head of Government Affairs at NRGS. A specialist in UK public affairs and government relations with more than two decades advising major multinational clients. Labour politics: A longtime ally of Andy Burnham, including in the Makerfield by-election and leadership campaigns, he is a specialist in Devolution in England and has served as a senior elected member in Local and Regional Government. At NRGS his remit covers engagement with government and public-sector stakeholders as the group’s programmes scale across UK regions and international markets.
Director, Head of Global Development
Peter Young brings experience at the scale of cities rather than individual sites. His track record includes a central role in the development of New Cairo, with current smart-city programmes in Harare and Abuja. His experience is relevant where NRGS moves from individual schemes into large urban programmes involving land, infrastructure, phasing, public-sector interfaces and long-term delivery.
Head of Planning
Robert French is Head of Planning at NRGS, with a career spanning politics, planning and energy. First elected as a councillor in 1984, he moved into planning and worked on major projects including Dalquhandy, one of the largest opencast sites in Western Europe, and, as a director of Cogen Energy, on gasification power-station projects connected to BAE offset programmes in Poland. He has since led planning initiatives across care villages, energy schemes (including work associated with the Samlesbury Cyber Corridor), solar farms and residential development.
Head of UK Production
John Boyd is Head of UK Production at NRGS, a construction professional with more than 40 years’ experience across residential, commercial, retail and industrial sectors, from hands-on trade to director-level leadership. He holds a BSc in Construction Project Management from Heriot-Watt University, is SMSTS qualified and is pursuing PMP and PRINCE2 certification, with a track record in project management, budgeting, HSE compliance and delivery.
President
Stoyan Novakov is President within the wider NRGS group. A qualified Bulgarian lawyer and transport and logistics expert, he is a former Deputy Minister for Transport and Communications in Bulgaria, bringing public-sector, legal and infrastructure experience across the group’s international activity.
Executive Vice President
Alex Nikolov is an Executive Vice President within the wider group and a former Energy Minister of Bulgaria (2021–2022), with a wealth of experience in infrastructure projects across Europe and beyond.
Executive Vice President
Dilyan Berkovski is an Executive Vice President within the wider group and a former Deputy Minister of Transport and Communications for Bulgaria. He has held a leadership role at AWS (Amazon Cloud Services) in Ireland, with extensive experience in data centres and undersea-cable management.
Architecture and Ecological Design
Professor Ken Yeang is an internationally recognised architect and a leading figure in ecological and bioclimatic design; The Guardian described him as “the world’s leading green skyscraper architect”. His work integrates ecology, passive environmental systems and high-density urban design. For NRGS he is central to product quality and differentiation: industrialising housing without stripping out design, environmental performance or identity.
Architecture and Design
Guy Hollaway is the owner and Principal of Guy Hollaway Architects, an award-winning practice with studios in London and Kent and multiple RIBA Awards, with a client record including Stanhope and U&I. He adds architectural and design capability to the NRGS product alongside Professor Ken Yeang.
Architecture
John Seifert is a British architect and son of Richard Seifert, designer of London landmarks including Centre Point and Tower 42. He founded John Seifert Architects in 1991, with a focus on hotel construction and refurbishment (including the Radisson SAS Frankfurt and the Charles de Gaulle Airport Hilton), and later established Sigma Seifert Architects. His work includes 125 London Wall, a 17-storey tower in the City’s financial district, and 21 Lombard Street.
Modular Design
Gordon Seath is a modular design specialist based in Scotland and was a driving force behind The Wee House Company, the Ayrshire offsite-homes builder whose recognition included Best Off-Site Manufactured House at the 2020 Build It Awards and wins at the Scotland Housing Awards and the Herald Property Awards for Scotland. As with much of the UK modular sector, the wider business subsequently faced the financial pressures that have affected many offsite manufacturers; Gordon’s contribution — design quality and factory-built production capability — is directly relevant to NRGS’s industrialised, manufacturing-led approach to homes.
Architects
Alain Deverini is a Monegasque architect known for his contributions to Monaco's architectural landscape. He was involved in the interior design of "Le Train Bleu," a restaurant within the Casino de Monte-Carlo The Deverini architectural legacy continues through Emmanuel Deverini, who founded Deverini Architects in 2007. This Monaco-based firm specializes in high-end residential projects and public facilities, contributing to the Principality's architectural development.
Senior Banking and Litigation Counsel
Kevin Heath is a senior banking partner at Troutman Pepper Locke in London and head of the firm’s London litigation practice. That combination is directly relevant: he pairs senior banking-law capability with disputes and enforcement experience.
Governance, Audit and Institutional Oversight
Jeremy Newman spent more than three decades with BDO, becoming UK Managing Partner and then Global CEO of BDO International. He subsequently chaired the Audit Commission and the Single Source Regulations Office, with further work connected to the Competition and Markets Authority and other governance bodies. He brings board-level audit discipline, financial oversight and institutional accountability.
Global CEO — Gleeds
Graham Harle is Global Chief Executive of Gleeds, overseeing a worldwide programme, project and cost-management business. His disciplines — programme management, cost control, procurement, risk and delivery governance — are what allow a repeatable platform to scale across geographies. He also introduced Lee Ealham to Nick Wallis, one of several long-standing professional relationships now embedded in the business.
Prime Sales — Beauchamp Estates
Gary Hersham is the founder of Beauchamp Estates, the prime central London estate agency he established in 1979, with international offices and a long record in London’s super-prime market. For NRGS he brings prime-sales reach and access to high-net-worth and international buyers.
Prime Real Estate — Ian Scott International
Alan Scott is a Director of Ian Scott International, a long-established Central London real-estate agency. He has specialised for most of his career in the letting, acquisition, development and purchase of prime Central London property — with particular focus on Oxford Street, Bond Street, the King’s Road and Knightsbridge — acting for major landlords including Land Securities, Legal & General, Derwent, Prudential, Cadogan and the Grosvenor Estate, and advising a range of major retail brands.
Capital Markets — Colliers
John Knowles is Head of National Capital Markets in the UK at Colliers, having previously been Managing Director, Corporate Finance at DTZ and Head of Capital Markets at LSH. He has deep knowledge of direct and indirect real estate and finance across Europe and Asia, has concluded more than thirty transactions in recent years including equity-raising and recapitalisation deals, and leads a team of around fifty covering the main property sectors alongside debt teams in London and Jersey. His experience is directly relevant to the structuring and placement of large real-estate financings.
Funding Partner and Adviser — Linear Investments
Paul Kelly is a Funding Partner and Adviser to NRGS. He is Chief Executive of Linear Investments, an FCA-regulated prime brokerage and discretionary fund manager based in London, with further offices internationally and earlier experience at Citi, NYFIX and Tamesis. He brings regulated brokerage, execution and markets capability to NRGS’s funding activities.
Insurance and Risk
John Collier is an insurance specialist and a member of Lloyd’s, formerly a Director of Willis (Willis Towers Watson). He brings senior insurance and risk expertise directly relevant to NRGS’s insurance and reinsurance arrangements.
Head of Development — Gleeds
Paul Dennison is Head of Development at Gleeds, where he chairs the residential sector team and acts as Framework Lead for Gleeds’ role on the Homes England Framework. With more than 45 years in the industry across construction, property development and consultancy, he specialises in regeneration and mixed-use development, working with clients and advisers to turn objectives into viable, deliverable schemes — from residential-led mixed-use and shopping centres to brownfield regeneration. He joined Gleeds in 2013.
Advisor
Antonio Potenza is an international corporate finance and business development professional with extensive experience supporting founders, business owners and management teams across financing, growth and strategic transactions. He is the Founder and Managing Director of AstonBlackstone International, where he advises businesses on corporate and project finance, capital raising, commercial strategy and transaction readiness. His work spans the UK, Europe and international markets, with particular experience in energy, natural resources, infrastructure and sustainability-focused projects. Antonio has worked with companies at different stages of development, helping to structure funding strategies, engage with investors and financial institutions, and develop the commercial and governance frameworks required to support growth. Alongside his corporate activities, Antonio has taught Business and Entrepreneurship in Oxford and has contributed to entrepreneurship education associated with the University of Oxford's Saïd Business School. At NRGS, Antonio brings a combination of financial, commercial and strategic expertise, with a particular focus on developing commercially viable projects, building strategic relationships and supporting access to international capital.
Consultant
(bio to follow)
Advisor
A keynote speaker in Beijing 2019 for the Chinese Government One Belt One Road conference, Mustaq has considerable experience in Energy and renewables, was former Head of Legal & Corporate Affairs for Jumar Holdings and Petromir, one of the world’s largest gas fields in the East Siberian region of Russia. Mustaq is also President and COO of a listed London renewable energy company.
Advisor
Alan Samson A dual-qualified lawyer (England and New York) with 35 years of expertise in advising U.S. and European investors on high-stakes real estate transactions. * Career Highlights: Former Partner and Global Co-Chair of the Real Estate Group at Gibson Dunn, where he spearheaded the firm's European real estate private equity practice (2000–2024). Specializes in real estate M&A, finance, development, joint ventures, distressed acquisitions, loan trading, and debt restructuring across all asset classes. * Industry Recognition: Named among the "100 Most Influential" by PERE and winner of the PERE Europe Transactions Award. Recognized by Chambers UK as a leading lawyer for Real Estate (Big Ticket) and Real Estate Finance. Inducted into Legal 500 UK’s ‘Hall of Fame’ for Real Estate and Real Estate Finance — the only London lawyer in both categories. Featured in Best Lawyers International, London Super Lawyers, and The Lawyer “Hot 100.” * Leadership & Impact: Serves on the Finance and Estates Committee at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Alan is a trusted advisor for navigating complex investment strategies in Europe's dynamic real estate markets.
Advisor
Rene is an inspirational speaker, specialising in leadership, inclusion and cultural transformation. Rene has advised leaders such as Mikhail Gorbachev and Tony Blair and some of the world's top CEOs. Rene has worked with Marks & Spencer, Pepsi, Barclays, Google, Deloitte, Visa, IBM and many more.
Advisor
Daniel Wallis advises NRGS on technology, Japan and smart cities, drawing on a career spanning Shazam Japan, Bloomberg and CitySage.