Matt Taylor is a Partner in the Real Estate Practice at Clifford Chance and leads the UK data centre team. Matt also specialises in complex real estate matters, with a focus on joint ventures and indirect acquisitions/disposals, as well as large-scale occupier transactions. Matt's client base is international and includes the largest financial investors, sovereign wealth funds and property companies. Matt leads our thought leadership around PropTech and is also part of the core leadership team of the global Clifford Chance Tech Group. Matt is a Member of Clifford Chance's London inclusion committee, executive sponsor of Enable (Clifford Chance's Disability and Neurodiversity affinity group) and the lead partner for diversity and inclusion for UK Real Estate.

Dawn is the Chief Executive of Pure; an accomplished engineer and operator who was honoured with a Fellowship from the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2020 and appointed DBE in the 2023 New Year honours list for her services to engineering. After leading the operational arm of Pure for two years, ensuring the delivery of resilient 24/7 operations globally, Dawn moved into the role of CEO. Prior to joining Pure, her career spanned several engineering sectors and industries including UK Change Director for National Grid across both the gas and electricity transmission businesses; Group Engineering Director for Merlin Entertainments.

Tim joined Tritax in January 2022 after 10 years at National Grid working across a number of technical and leadership roles. He is responsible for power strategy across the Tritax Group – developing and implementing a co-ordinated, resilient and futureproof offering. His project experience spans managing significant asset management portfolios, developing cutting edge and innovative designs for the UK power system, and working on some of the UK’s largest projects. Most recently he was focused on the strategic development of the UK power system to facilitate net zero transition, notably developing in conjunction with government a national charging strategy for EVs and facilitating the connection of the first battery storage portfolios to the

Emma Matebalavu is a Partner, Global Head of Financial Markets at Clifford Chance and Global Partner Sponsor for Accelerate, our gender parity network. She specialises in in all forms of UK and European Real Estate Finance, CRE loan portfolio sales, CRE back leverage and CMBS. Emma advises on data centre financings in particular she acted for Vantage on the first European data centre ABS which won GlobalCapitalEuropean CRE Securitisation Deal of the Year and Overall Securitisation Deal of the Year. Emma has been with the firm for 24 years and acts for a range of clients, particularly financial investors such as hedge funds and debt funds, investment banks and insurance companies. Emma featured in The Lawyer Hot 100 List 2020, Financial News 100 Women in Finance 2022 awards, Leading Individual, Property Finance, Legal 500 UK 2024 and Capital Markets: Securitisation, Chambers UK 2024 and Chambers Global 2023.

David Smith serves as Chief Investment Officer at Echelon Data Centres, a leading UK-based data center developer and operator. In his role, Smith oversees investment strategy and capital allocation for the company's portfolio of mission-critical digital infrastructure assets. He brings extensive experience in real estate and infrastructure investment, having worked across various sectors before joining Echelon. Smith is responsible for identifying growth opportunities, managing investor relations, and driving the strategic expansion of Echelon's data center operations across key markets. His expertise spans financial analysis, risk management, and strategic planning within the rapidly evolving digital infrastructure sector.

Ira Panova is a Director in the Real Estate Investment team at CPP Investments based in London. Ira has been covering the Data Center strategy and origination since she joined CPPIB in 2017. In addition to that, she is responsible for origination, execution and asset management activity in the real estate sector across Europe. Prior to joining CPP Investments, Ira was a Vice President in the Real Estate Investment Banking team at JP Morgan, focused on M&A in the real estate sector across EMEA. She has also spent four years in Strategy Consulting at Charles River Associates in Boston, USA. Ira holds an MBA from Columbia Business School

James Halstead, Managing Director, is BlackRock’s Chief Investment Officer for European Value-Add Real Estate. He is responsible for investment strategy, originating and managing value add and opportunistic real estate investments across the region. He is a member of the European Real Estate Investment Committee and has invested in over $2bn of transactions at BlackRock across three European Value-Add funds.

Jan is MD & Co-Head of Real Estate Finance for the EMEA Region at Goldman Sachs. He has extensive transaction experience across asset classes including hospitality, office, logistics, retail, datacenter, cold storage assets as well as SPL/NPL portfolio financing and construction finance. He has worked in various jurisdictions across Europe. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Jan worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citi in real estate finance, securitization and investment banking.

Justin Hildebrandt serves as Executive Managing Director, Head of Europe, for Affinius Capital, where he is responsible for overseeing all European operations and investments, including fund management, joint venture relationships, acquisitions, developments, and dispositions. Justin sits on the Board and is actively involved in the pan-European logistics joint venture, Mountpark Logistics EU Sarl, and its majority ownership of the Mountpark Logistics development company for which he is also CEO. In addition to the logistics businesses, Justin leads the firm's growing investment activities in Europe in purpose-built rental housing, data centers, and credit.

Partha Sarathy serves as Head of Asset Management at Pictet Asset Management UK, bringing extensive expertise in investment management and portfolio strategy. With a distinguished career in asset management, he oversees investment operations and client solutions at one of Europe's leading independent wealth and asset managers. Sarathy's leadership focuses on delivering innovative investment strategies and maintaining Pictet's reputation for excellence in global markets. His experience spans institutional and private client asset management, contributing to the firm's growth and strategic initiatives across diverse investment portfolios and market segments.

Richard works in Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba)’s project finance team based in London focusing on digital infrastructure, energy transition, and economic infrastructure for the UK and Ireland but also in wider Europe following clients. This has involved arranging and lending to a number of landmark transactions including carbon capture and storage, fibre, data centres, offshore wind and PPPs, under corporate, acquisition and project finance structures. Prior to Helaba Richard worked in KPMG in their advisory and consulting business advising Government and private side clients on project finance transactions.