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UK/France: FHS Living has revealed the first tranche of speakers for its Paris conference which is taking place on February 23/24.
Urban Living News is a media partner for the event which will feature speakers from Brookfield, Nuveen Real Estate, Aroundtown, Realstar Group, Candy Capital and Accor One Living.
FHS Living is part of Future Hospitality Summit (FHS), the investment series organised by The Bench, which has run hospitality investment forums for more than two decades.
FHS also runs FHS World in Dubai, now in its 22nd edition, as well as FHS Saudi Arabia, FHS Africa and FHS Egypt. Senior leaders from real estate investment, development and operations are among the first names confirmed for Paris, with more speakers to be announced in the coming weeks.
FHS Living brings together the investors, developers and operators behind Europe’s living sector, built around the hotelisation of real estate: applying hotel-style hospitality, design, services, and management to non-hospitality properties like office buildings, residential apartments, co-living spaces, and mixed-use developments.
The forum covers nine asset classes: hotels and resorts, branded residences, student accommodation (PBSA), senior living, serviced living, coliving, shared ownership, club concepts and mixed-use developments.
FHS Living is an investor-led forum where, across two days, real estate capital from Europe and the Middle East will meet the operators and developers who make hospitality-led real estate perform. Hosted investor meetings run alongside the programme on both days, with pre-qualified, pre-scheduled 1:1 introductions between capital, developers and operators, so investors can meet the projects and partners relevant to their mandates in a single visit.
Investment in Europe’s living sectors rose 22 per cent to €62.2 billion in 2025 and is forecasted to exceed €70 billion in 2026 (JLL), while Europe faces a shortfall of 9.6 million homes (CBRE). In branded residences, Savills puts the European price premium at 38 per cent, up from 29 per cent a year earlier.
The two-day programme builds on the conversations at FHS Living’s edition at FHS World in Dubai in October, with every session framed around a topic investors, developers and operators are currently working on. Main-stage discussions range from Europe’s living investment outlook to whether the operator is the missing piece in the hotelisation of real estate, who the resident really is and what makes hotelised living bankable. Dedicated sessions on student housing, senior living and branded residences sit alongside the policy and planning needed to close Europe’s 9.6 million home gap. Away from the main stage, masterclasses, interactive roundtables and case study clinics open up the real numbers behind completed deals, while a networking reception and site visits to key living assets turn conversations into business.
The first confirmed speakers include:
- Lauren Okada Young, Managing Director, Brookfield, Asset Management
- Jasper Gilbey, Head of Housing, Alternatives & Strategic Transactions, Europe, Nuveen Real Estate
- Ryan Prince, Vice Chairman, Realstar and Founder, UNCLE
- Kamaldeep Manaktala, Group Deputy CEO, Aroundtown SA
- Stephen Sackur, Former Presenter, HARDtalk
- Eric Jafari, Founder & CEO, Aendre
- Michael Levie, Co-Founder, citizenM
- Annemarie Manning, Head of Investor Solutions, Orange Capital Partners
- Guy Ivesha, Founder, Maslow’s
- Jan Garde, Founder & Chairman, THE EMBASSIES of Good Living
- Dimitris Manikis, President EMEA, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts
- Jeff Tisdall, Chief Business Officer, Accor One Living & Global Head of Mixed-Use, Accor
- Barry Landsberg, Principal, Landsberg Residential Consulting
- Nick Candy, Chief Executive Officer, Candy Capital
- Dirk Bakker, Chief Executive Officer – Hospitality, Necron Group
- Fritz Dickamp, Managing Director, Studio 49
- David Keen, Founder and CEO, QUO
Ali Shahid, CEO of The Bench, said: “Europe’s living sector spans student housing, senior living, coliving, branded residences and more, yet the investors, developers and operators behind it have rarely had one room that brings them all together. FHS Living is built to be that room. This first set of speakers shows the calibre of investors and operators taking part, and with hosted investor meetings at the core of the format, our aim is simple: to move deals forward.”
Urban Living News is a media partner for the event, which follows our own Urban Living Festival (ULF, London, February 16th). There is no cost for investors, operators, developers, and lenders from across hospitality and living to attend ULF – click here to secure your ticket.
