Meet our Executive Leadership Team

Elaine was appointed Chief Executive Officer of UPP in 2020, to lead and deliver on UPP’s strategic commitments to operational excellence, long-term partnerships and generating value for reinvestment.

She has significant experience and expertise in delivering property and facilities management, gained most recently during her role as Chief Executive Officer for NHS Property Services Ltd where she was responsible for managing and servicing a £3bn asset portfolio, some 4,000 properties, 5,000 employees and an annual income of more than £700m.

Prior to this, Elaine held the position of Group Property Director at BT Group PLC where she managed the largest corporate portfolio in the UK, delivering services to 7,000 properties both nationally and globally.

As well as having considerable private sector experience, Elaine has also held public sector roles, notably as Crown Representative in the Cabinet Office for Property and Facilities Management across Government.

Elaine is a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

Mark Bamford was appointed Chief Financial Officer of UPP during 2022, joining from Thames Water where he has been Group Financial Controller and Finance Director Operations and Capital Delivery since 2017. Mark has 25 years’ experience in the telecommunications, utilities, financial and professional services sectors. In his role at Thames Water, he was responsible for managing revenues of over £2 billion and operational and capital expenditure in excess of £2 billion per annum, across Thames Water’s 15 million customers and 7,000 employees.

Before joining Thames Water, Mark spent six years at Arqiva, the UK communications and broadcasting infrastructure company, in the role of Finance Director and Director, Wireless Infrastructure Management.

Mark has also held a role as Vice President at Macquarie Group, the global financial services provider and qualified as an accountant in 2001. Mark studied at the University of Oxford where he took an MA in Geography.

Billy was appointed Interim Managing Director of UPP Residential Services in 2023, and took on the permanent Executive role in December the same year. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing the Group’s provision of specialist residential management services.

Billy joined UPP in August 2011 in the Commercial team of Residential Services and held a variety of roles before moving into business development in 2019. He then took on a more senior Strategy and Transformation role within our Corporate team in 2020. Billy, who graduated with a Law Degree and an MBA, has been instrumental in driving transformation across the business.

Kelly was appointed Chief Human Resources Officer in 2016. In this role, she has overall responsibility for people strategies across the Group.

Kelly joined UPP from Balfour Beatty plc, where she was Director of Talent & Development of the Construction Services (UK Division), as well as a member of the senior management team. Prior to this, she was Human Resource Director UK & Ireland for Tech Data Corporation Inc. In addition, Kelly has held senior positions at Carnival Corporation and Carnival plc (UK), MJ Gleeson Group plc and Crest Nicholson plc. Kelly has also acted as a consultant for the charity, Age UK (Southampton) on a voluntary basis.

Deborah leads UPP’s marketing and communications strategy and is responsible for corporate marketing and brand management, corporate affairs and public relations, sector engagement and employee communications. She is also responsible for helping drive forward our commitment to ESG.

Deborah has a wealth of experience across multiple sectors and has previously worked across both B2B and B2C marketing in business leading roles across major brands for over 20 years. She is a highly successful marketing leader with a strong track record of designing and implementing award winning marketing and communications strategies and transformation initiatives delivering significant growth.

Prior to joining UPP in 2022, Deborah held the post of Customer Services Director at NHS Property Services, and Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Prior to this she was  Head of Media and Marketing at the agency Hobsbawm Macaulay Communications.

Adam is a Chartered Construction Manager (MCIOB) and a Member of the Association for Project Management (MAPM), with experience working on a diverse number of schemes in variety of roles, including Purpose Built Student Accommodation, Schools, Hospitals, Office Developments, Residential Developments and Leisure projects.

At UPP, Adam oversees the construction and asset management function, within Adams remit area also Health, Safety and Wellbeing, Procurement and Commercial, as well as Statutory and Technical Compliance.

Prior to UPP, Adam spent 13 years at Balfour Beatty in a number of roles.

Matt Burton has worked in Higher Education, property and infrastructure sector for over a decade. At UPP, Matt is a statutory director and leads all portfolio SPV management activity. He is responsible for leading strategic relationship management, fostering long-term beneficial partnerships. This includes regular engagement with senior university officers, responsibility for ongoing revenue and occupancy delivery, as well as portfolio strategy development.

Previously, Matt worked at the University of York where he successfully delivered high quality space management services including the management of residential, teaching and learning spaces.

He has served on various governing bodies and councils, founded commercial enterprises and is a champion for initiatives that enhance the customer and student experience.

Karen joined UPP in the summer of 2016 and leads on business development. Karen leads agile teams of UPP colleagues, external consultants, and design professionals to pull together compelling new projects which help UPP to secure new partnerships with universities.

Starting her career in retail banking, Karen studied to become an associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers. She then moved into local government, which is where she developed a passion for social inclusion issues and ways of keeping young people in education.

Karen is involved with a number of school governing bodies, serving on disciplinary committees and focusing on helping pupils avoid being excluded from the educational environment.

Simon was appointed Executive Group Investment Director in June 2023, with responsibility for finance-raising, debt funder stakeholder management, and portfolio management. He is also responsible for inorganic growth and investor reporting.

He has driven major growth for UPP over the last decade, having structured and executed transactions worth over £1bn and significantly strengthened UPP’s debt investor base. He has also introduced new financial structures to the business, including an award-winning debt overlay deal.

Prior to joining UPP in 2013, Simon was at Grant Thornton UK LLP within the Government and Infrastructure Advisory team, advising private and public sector clients on PPP and PFI projects across a range of sectors.