The Crown Estate, the property company of the UK reigning monarch, has appointed John Nicholson as head of delivery and programme management.
Nicholson will be responsible for overseeing the delivery of major construction projects across the UK for the urban development pipeline.
His previous experience spans retail and office developments to sports stadiums in London and New York, including the delivery of the Sky TV Campus in London and the Aquatic Centre and Athletes Village for the Olympic Delivery Authority. He was awarded an OBE for services to the London 2012 Olympics in 2013.
The Crown Estate’s urban portfolio includes 10 million square feet of workplace, retail and lifestyle space in London’s West End, alongside a potential pipeline of up to 19 million square feet of workspace and up to 56,000 homes nationally.
Kristy Lansdown, managing director – development at The Crown Estate, said in a statement: “John joins our urban business at an exciting time as we ramp up activity across our development pipeline. He brings a wealth of global experience in the construction industry, working on the delivery of technically complex and large-scale projects. For the Crown Estate he will also have a particular focus on ensuring our safety-first approach is embedded in everything we do, as we seek to continually raise the bar in health, safety and wellbeing standards. We’re thrilled to have John on board as we look to deliver our ambitious development pipeline to better serve the country.”
Established by an Act of Parliament, the Crown Estate is charged with growing the value of the portfolio for the nation and returning all of its net profit to Treasury for the benefit of public spending. This has totalled £4 billion over the last 10 years.