Incoming President’s Report

chair, has achieved phenomenal success over its short life – all in no small part due to Ian, who has been exactly the President needed through such trying times.

Dan Nicholson Executive Director GPE

Taking on the Presidency of the Cambridge University Land Society is something which I feel very honoured to have been asked to do. Following in the footsteps of Ian Marcus compounds the honour, setting as he has such a clear precedent for a new President.

It’s wonderful that the Society is back to hosting in-person events and is running as it was in 2019. The Society has also established an additional forum which, thanks to its very active and vibrant

Going forward, what do I hope to achieve over the period in which I have been honoured with the Presidency? Firstly, resolution of the most pressing issue facing the Department of Land Economy and the one where the members of the Society should be able to help - a new faculty building. The irony is not lost on any of us that the department which has produced thousands of successful real estate professionals, who spend their working lives improving the stock of the built environment, does not have its own physical home. Many sterling e orts have been made before, and it seems matters are moving slowly in the right direction. I hope therefore that we can give Professor Howarth and the department the support and assistance they need to make this happen.

Secondly, we should recognise more fully that our progress through the best university in the world gave us great leverage into our careers. I firmly believe that we should use the benefits of these careers to help the students now coming through the university into their own working lives, in full recognition of how lucky we were. This help should be spread more widely throughout the student body, into ensuring that the real estate working population becomes far more diverse than its current make-up. We should do all we can as a Society to help with this, and assist with our industry becoming better educated and more active in the di usion of diversity in the real estate sector.

Lastly, the underlying theme of this year’s magazine is resilience and our ability to contribute when change and instability test us. How we respond in such times becomes our definition, the distilled essence of who we are. Whilst our professional actions (hopefully) make a physically better world, I hope that the articles contained herein show us that it’s the nature of our reaction to troubled times which really displays our innate qualities and strengths, and which makes the world a better place for those around us. Can there be a more noble aim?