Johanna is a dual-qualified English barrister and Scottish solicitor (now non-practising). She practised as a barrister at a leading set of chambers in London for 10 years, specialising in planning, administrative and public law, and local government law, and ranked as a leading planning junior in the Legal 500.

On returning to Scotland, Johanna was the first woman to lead Stirling Council and the youngest council leader in Scotland at that time. As council leader, she secured a historic £214m City Region Deal for Stirling and Clackmannanshire, closed the gender pay gap for council employees, amongst other achievements.

Following her decision to move on from politics, Johanna worked with the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on a programme of work to ensure that equalities best practices is embedded into City Region and Growth Deals.

Johanna joined Planning Aid Scotland from the Government, Regulation and Competition team at Brodies LLP, where she regularly advised across public, private and third sectors on all aspects of planning, administrative, public, local government and regulatory law.

Dr John Boyle leads the Rettie & Co Research Team, providing a cutting-edge research and consultancy function. His work informs clients on sales, lettings, investment and development opportunities. He also analyses the current status of property markets and assesses how they are likely to change. Over the last 17 years, he has worked for all of the major house builders in Scotland, the Scottish Government, many local authorities and investors. He led the Scottish Government’s study into the 5-year Review of the Home Report. He sits on Homes for Scotland’s Policy Advisory Group and is a member of the Society of Property Researchers and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Maria Francké Planning is a Chartered Town Planning Consultancy established by Maria Francké, BSc MBA AIEMA MRTPI in 2013.

Maria was latterly a Partner at Cushman & Wakefield where she headed up the Development and Planning business in Scotland. Having always worked in commercial private practice, she has commercial realism and acknowledgement of how the construction and development industry works. She has earned a reputation for the quality of advice and a track record of adding value to clients’ property portfolios and landholdings.

Maria has extensive experience in providing town planning consultancy advice to a mix of private and public sector clients including local authorities, developers, investment funds, retailers and house builders on project feasibility, planning applications and appeals, ensuring compliance with planning policy.

Maria is the immediate past Chair of the Scottish Property Federation and sits on their Policy and Planning Committees. She stepped down from the Scottish Board of Women in Property earlier this year, having previously held positions of UK National Chairman along with Branch Chairman and Treasurer for the Central Scotland branch. She speaks regularly at planning and property seminars and conferences across the UK.

Kenn Gibb is a Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences in the subject area of Urban Studies. He is also Director of the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE) funded by ESRC, AHRC and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and established in 2017. CaCHE is located in the Olympia Building, Bridgeton, in the social sciences research hub. For four years, he was the first director of Policy Scotland, and also a co-director of What Works Scotland co-funded by ESRC and Scottish Government (until taking up the role in CaCHE).

He has been a full time member of staff at the University in various guises since 1989. He was an ESRC research fellow until his appointment as a Lecturer in 1994. After becoming a Senior Lecturer in 1999 and a Reader in 2001, he became a Professor (housing economics) in 2006. He was also Head of the Department of Urban Studies from 2005 to 2010 and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Law, Business and Social Sciences in 2009-10.

His research interests are focused on the economic, financial and policy dimensions of housing. He has carried out research for government departments, ESRC, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, trade bodies, the private sector and international organisations like OECD, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute and the European Union. Recent research, including projects for the Scottish Funding Council and for the EPSRC, have shifted into the economics and evaluation of net zero and lower carbon retrofit of existing housing.

He was a managing editor of the Urban Studies journal for 10 years. He is a past president of RC43 (housing) of the International Sociological Association and is a former president of the European Real Estate Society. He is an associate editor of Housing, Theory and Society. He was a visiting professor to the University of Amsterdam in 2011. He has acted as advisor to the Scottish Parliament's Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee and has also worked for the Scottish Parliament's Welfare Reform Committee. He has given evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Finance Committee, Local Government Committee and the Social Security Committee (previously welfare reform), as well as the Scottish Affairs and Housing and Local Government select committees at Westminster.

He was a member of Lord Best’s housing affordability commission, he sits on an MLUHC expert panel considering implementation of the UK Government’s social housing white paper. He is a member of the Northern Ireland government’s housing supply task force and a member of the research and insights advisory panel of The Housing Agency (Ireland). He also chairs the advisory board of the Dublin Housing Observatory. He leads (with David Duncan) the University’s Glasgow homelessness initiative.

Duncan was a member of the Board of Scottish Homes from 1989 until 1999 and then spent a decade working in government, as special Adviser to the First Minister of Scotland, as a Chief Economist in the Government of Victoria and as Chief Economist in Canada’s Federal Department for Infrastructure and Cities.

He has acted as adviser to Ministers in the UK, Scotland, France, Poland and Norway, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Academy of Social Sciences and Honorary Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, The Chartered Institute of Housing and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.

He was awarded a CBE for services to UK housing research in 1997. He remains affiliated to the University of Glasgow as an Emeritus Professor of Urban Economics and holds Professorial appointments in Housing Economics at McMaster University (Ontario) and UNSW (Sydney).

Craig McLaren is Scotland's first National Planning Improvement Champion, a role that was established in the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 to monitor the performance of planning authorities and support them to identify and tackle areas of improvement. Craig is based in the Improvement Service and took up post in September 2023.

Prior to that he was Director of Scotland, Ireland and English Regions in the Royal Town Planning Institute and previously was Director of the Scottish Centre for Regeneration in Communities Scotland/ Scottish Government; Chief Executive of SURF (Scottish Urban Regeneration Forum); Scottish Policy Officer at RTPI; and a planner in the London Borough of Kingston upon Thames.

Craig is a Fellow of both the RTPI and the RSA. He has also sat on the Boards of Scotland's Towns Partnership, Built Environment Forum Scotland, Greenspace Scotland, Resilient Scotland and the Jim Boyack Memorial Trust.

Ken has a portfolio of interests primarily in the built environment, including delivering sustainable developments, affordable housing, and renewable energy. He has also had a longstanding interest in climate change and served on the Sullivan Commission in 2007. Ken has uniquely been past chairman of the Scottish Housebuilders Association and the Scottish Property Federation. He was a Governor at the Glasgow School of Art and is currently Chair of the GSA Trustees. In 2015, he was appointed as a Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Renfrewshire.

Nicola leads the Lichfields Edinburgh office. She has worked as a town planner for both the private and public sector since 1997.

Nicola has a background in master planning complex brownfield sites for a mix of commercial, community and residential uses; community engagement; commercial development; regeneration; new housing/mixed use development; as well as, planning policy development; and, the development of the evidence base needed to support Local Development Plans through the examination process.

In Scotland, Nicola works with house builders, land owners, retailers, leisure operators, local authorities, Homes for Scotland and the Scottish Government on a wide range of projects.

Immediately before joining Lichfields, Nicola successfully led the development and examination of the Core Strategy and Urban Core Plan for Newcastle City and Gateshead Council.