Staff Type: Board

Karen is an executive partner of Druces LLP, a niche City of London law firm. She has been acting for Summerfield since the early 1990s and,  in 2020, she agreed to join our Board as our non-executive director, enabling us to benefit from her extensive experience of more than 30 years in commercial real estate.

Ed’s primary responsibilities are as Managing Director of Summerfield Homes the groups award winning housebuilding division.

Prior to Summerfield Ed was the youngest Regional Board Member at Retirement house builder McCarthy & Stone PLC aged 27. He was responsible for the acquisition and promotion of development sites across the South West and Wales. Ed was recruited by McCarthy & Stone out of international property consultancy Knight Frank LLP.

Having grown up in Taunton, Rob returned to the town after university to qualify as a chartered accountant with a local general practice accountancy firm. After a few years in general practice, Rob joined Summerfield in 2004, to assist the Finance Director with all things number crunching and bean counting.

Rob now runs the finance department for the group and holds the role of Company Secretary for a number of group companies.

Ben followed a degree in Land Management at Reading University with a Land Agency role with Knight Frank (1994), before moving into commercial agency with first King Sturge in Bath (1998) and later Osmond Tricks in Bristol (2003).

In October 2005, Ben joined Summerfield and now has responsibility for all of Summerfield’s business parks alongside a role in strategic and asset management of the company’s property portfolio.

Ben joined the Board as Commercial Director on 1 November 2018.

James has worked for the Group since 1992, starting on the construction side and moving across to property management in the late 90’s. As Managing Director he is responsible for all aspects of asset management for the group’s diverse property portfolio and business parks, and works with his team to achieve a professional and proactive department.

Mark is a Chartered Accountant who qualified with KPMG in Cardiff. Having worked for KPMG for seven years he joined the Stansell Group in 1992 and soon became a member of the Summerfield team. He has headed the group finance function since 1999.

 

Richard qualified as a Chartered Surveyor with Savills in London before moving to Bristol with King Sturge, concentrating on office agency. He joined Summerfield at its inception in 1987 and has been instrumental in Summerfield’s growth to become one of the major regional developers in the South West with a reputation of delivering good quality property in great locations.

Richard is Non-Executive Chairman of Summerfield Developments SW Ltd and Executive Chairman of Tauntfield Ltd.