9. Anna Strongman: From King's Cross to Oxford - Building for the Long Game

Anna Strongman is a fascinating guest. From studying history at university, to a scholarship in Japan working in economic policy, to walking the streets of Edinburgh with a clipboard, to spending nearly two decades helping shape King's Cross into one of the most celebrated regeneration projects in Europe.Now she's CEO of Oxford University Development, a public-private joint venture between Oxford University and Legal & General, building the infrastructure to support one of the world's great knowledge economies.Anna reflects on what it was like to join Related Argent at 35 people and grow with the business across every discipline - asset management, estate management, development, investment - before eventually running Related Argent as Managing Partner. She talks candidly about the importance of cultural fit, how unstructured environments suit some people brilliantly and terrify others, and why she did a masters in property valuation and real estate finance at night school because she refused to be caught short on the language of the industry.What excites her now? Affordable housing, yes, but more specifically the Oxford-Cambridge Golden Triangle and the very real risk that the UK becomes a brilliant incubator for ideas that get commercialised somewhere else. She's not alarmist about it, but she is urgent. Two to three years, not twenty.