Conférence FEDESSA 2023

Mark Durden-Smith

Event Host,

Taking a break from his roles on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here! Now, ‘Aviva Premiership Rugby Highlights’ and Sky 1’s ‘The Match’ and passing up a much higher paid job offer to host a massively prestigious event just because he loved his time with the self storage industry so much last time.  Mark injects a level of humour into the event while keeping things on track and managing all the questions from the audience.

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Cris Burnam

President, StorageMart

Cris Burnam has been in the self-storage industry since 1987, serving as President of StorageMart since 1999. Headquartered in Columbia, Missouri, StorageMart is the largest privately owned company in the industry, with 225 locations across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, comprising approximately 15,000,000 net rentable square feet and over 134,000 rental units. Currently, as Chief Executive Officer, Cris oversees all aspects of the organization.

In 2021, Cris and the executive team acquired Manhattan Mini Storage, with 17 self storage locations across New York City for circa US$ 3 billion. This acquisition holds the record for largest transaction within the self storage industry.

Cris has been recognized as EY Entrepreneur of the Year for 2014, and was also given the 2014 Torch Award by the Better Business Bureau. Cris is listed as one of Ingram’s Magazine of One of 50 Missourians You Should Know and has been a member of the Forbes Real Estate Council since 2018. In 2008, Cris led the company in its successful $416 million dollar takeover of InStorage REIT, a publicly traded REIT on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The transaction closed in March of 2009, and has since been fully integrated in StorageMart.

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Andrew Grill

Futurist Speaker and Technology Trends Expert Andrew Grill is a former IBM Global Managing Partner and a popular and sought-after keynote speaker and trusted board-level technology advisor.

With 30+ years of experience leading technology companies, Andrew provides actionable advice to help any audience harness digital technologies to achieve their corporate goals with a near-term focus.

A strong digital advocate and former Electronic Engineer, Andrew believes that “to get digital, you need to be digital”. His engaging keynotes provide actionable insights on how to harness digital technologies to achieve corporate goals on a global and long-lasting scale.

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Nigel Risner

Nigel Risner draws on real-life examples to guide professionals through adversity and change. He helps to empower them to play to their strengths and embrace opportunities through lively sessions designed to teach clients, at all levels, how to boost self-esteem and make things happen.

Nigel teaches strategic techniques, that he helps teams to put into practice on a regular basis, and inspires others to have faith in themselves. He has proven the power of these tenets in his own career: at only 26-years-old, he ran a successful finance company as one of the youngest CEOs in London.

He was also the former president of the London Chapter of Professional Speakers Association, has been voted Speaker of the year by the Academy of Chief Executives, Vistage and Footdown and is a Companion of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management.

His 'animal theory', expounded in his book ‘It’s a Zoo Around Here’, is particularly popular: delegates are categorised according to four communication styles—lion, elephant, monkey and dolphin—to demonstrate how teams can benefit from the interplay of its different members.
 

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Marc Barth

Store-IT

Marc has been with Store-IT since 2014, and through a Management Buyout in 2016, he became the owner and CEO of the company. With a history spanning over 23 years, Store-IT has established itself as one of the foremost manufacturers of Self Storage Management Software in Europe, boasting customers in more than 18 countries. Headquartered in Holland, Store-IT focuses on simplifying business processes for Self Storage Operators by constantly implementing the latest techniques within its software. Marc, an expert in software design, is eager to discuss and share his insights regarding the impact of A.I. on the Self Storage Industry.

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Stuart Blackie

Freemont Realty Capital

Stuart Blackie joined Fremont Realty Capital in 2006 with asset management assignments in office, retail, lodging, residential and non-traditional sectors such as storage real estate, senior housing, and land investments.  In 2014, after spearheading Fremont’s re-entry into the European self-storage business, he relocated to Barcelona, Spain and dedicated his efforts towards building Fremont into a leading European self-storage investor.  Mr. Blackie, now based in London, UK, serves on the Board of Directors of Bluespace, the largest Spanish self-storage platform and has asset management responsibilities for MyPlace, the largest German/Austrian self-storage platform.  Additionally, he has responsibility for new investment and add-on opportunities throughout the UK and Europe.

Prior to joining Fremont Realty Capital, Mr. Blackie was Director, Capital Markets and Head of Investor Relations for Shurgard Storage Centers and before that Corporate Finance Manager for its offshore division headquartered in Brussels. He began his career with the real estate investment banking group at Credit Suisse First Boston in London. 

Mr. Blackie received a Bachelor of Management Studies in International Management, Finance & Accounting from the University of Waikato (New Zealand) and is a Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA).

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Robbie Cameron

Director of Search, Digital First

Robbie, who has over 17 years’ experience in the self storage industry, has worked at every level of operations in the leading and largest self storage brand in Africa, Stor-Age Property REIT (JSE - SSS) (https://stor-age.co.za/), of which he was a founding staff member. Specialising in digital marketing, Robbie heads the experienced Digital First team (https://www.digitalfirst.co.uk) overseeing daily operations and the execution of strategic campaigns focused on enquiry generation.

With extensive experience in onboarding greenfield self storage locations and multiple acquisitions across brands and continents, Robbie is most proud of the continued improvement in performance in competitive markets. He believes that Digital First is uniquely positioned as a self storage expert with excellent marketing capabilities supported by their accredited Google and Meta partnerships.

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Oliver Close

CBRE Ltd

Oliver Close is a Senior Director at CBRE Ltd and leads the firm’s activities in the self storage sector.  Oliver has over 22 years’ experience in self storage and has provided real estate advice to many of the major operators in the industry, across both Europe and the Asian self storage markets.  
Oliver worked on the stock market flotations of both Shurgard and Safestore, has executed a number of sale transactions in several jurisdictions and collaborates closely with the SSA UK, including with the production of the UK Self Storage Survey for a period of years.  CBRE’s activities include, in addition to valuations and transactions, general advisory, debt advisory, equity raising, capital allowance advice, corporate finance and site acquisition services.

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Oliver (Oli) Dunn

Glencourt Associates Ltd

Oliver (Oli) is the lead recruiter for the self-storage market in the UK as well as heading the Glencourt recruitment team, upholding very high standards for himself and the consultants.

Oli has 21 years' retail management experience and was responsible for top performing stores/ Areas within three major retailers’ portfolios. Ten years ago, he joined a market leading retail recruitment company, He worked with some huge retail brands before servicing some large Self Storage businesses.

Over a Ten-year period, Oli developed a very detailed knowledge of recruitment for the self-storage market and works with operators across the UK and Ireland. He sources candidates from Sales up to Director and works with many operators to help shape their process for hire.

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Anthony Hebblethwaite

DSOC

Since 2020 DSOC has grown, not only in the self storage sector, but also nationally within the wider fire and security industry. Anthony joined DSOC having spent his whole 16-year career in the security industry across engineering, accounts, and most recently, sales. Initially, he helped to establish DSOC on a technical level with the alarm-receiving platform and technical support across the business. After much success with brand awareness and new business, Anthony now heads up Sales and Account Management for all existing and new customers at DSOC. He is the named supplier account manager for over 200 self storage facilities in the UK including Big Yellow, Storage King, Ready Steady Store, and many more multi-site national operators and small independent operators. 

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John Kampfer

John Kampfner has spent 25 years at the top of public life-spanning media, politics, international affairs, the arts and third sectors. Beginning as a Reuters trainee reporter in Moscow before spells as Chief Political Correspondent at the FT and then Editor at the New Statesman, John has also lobbied for libel reform, worked with Google across free expression, privacy, and data, acted as chair for the Turner Contemporary and Clore Social Leadership Programme. 

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Christel Land

Clover 4

Christel Land is a popular business coach/consultant and an experienced sales and marketing trainer with extensive experience working in the self storage industry.  She regularly delivers sales, service, and marketing training sessions for the SSA UK and FEDESSA.  She started out in self storage over 20 years ago and since then she has worked at every level of the industry. It is this experience she brings to her training and coaching. Christel also works with web design and specializes in building smart booking systems for self storage websites. She is the author of the only book to date on sales in the self storage industry.  Combining her engaging training style with an enormous amount of industry knowledge, Christel will give you all the tools you need to grow your sales skills and improve your performance.

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Jill Leckie

Developed by Me

With over a decade's worth of experience in digital marketing, Jill helps marketing teams with big business and brand ambitions to achieve their goals through data-driven insights and strategies. Jill is a Hyper Island alumni and a certified LinkedIn and Meta advertiser, with skills in paid social media, Google Ads, email marketing, SEO, and content creation.

As a co-owner and marketing manager in a growing company, Jill designs and delivers multichannel strategies that are manageable, time-saving, and optimised for each business's unique objectives. Jill has leveraged her own entrepreneurial journey of growing a small blog to a digital platform with thousands of organic visitors per month. Currently, she is a consulting marketing manager at Lagerkungen, where she has helped them reach top 5 in the Swedish Self Storage market in 6 months.

“The business of Self Storage is at a pivotal point in its development with automation, predictive technology and more marketing streams than ever before. It can feel overwhelming but it doesn’t have to be, as long as you have clear goals, understand your audience and your business strategy.”

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Jon Loftin

Open Tech Alliance

Jon Loftin, SVP of Product

With over 30 years of experience in senior management roles in self storage, Jon Loftin is one of the industry’s leading product experts with experience both in the US and International markets. He has contributed to the success of Digi Tech International, Chamberlain Access Products Group and PTI. Loftin joined OpenTech Alliance in 2016 to spearhead the development of the OpenTech IoE, an intelligent platform of cloud-based self storage solutions. Loftin now oversees Product Development and Support for the company’s portfolio of 10+ products/services.

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Hugh Murray

CEO, Bearbox

Hugh is a chartered engineer with a background in power plants, including nuclear engineering; he then migrated his engineering skills to fire and security systems. You might see him in any number of capacities from initial design survey to technical support or representing Knighthood and Bearbox at trade shows.  He developed an intelligent Cloud based security system which can monitor all types of inputs and provide the necessary warnings and alarms to allow customers to control access to their sites and manage the security within it.

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Ollie Saunders

Ollie is real estate professional with a leading profile in the self storage sector having worked across the UK and EMEA since the 1990s from a valuation, agency and corporate finance perspective.  

He brings together first-hand creative transactional experience together with analytical valuation professionalism and deep industry knowledge. 

Passionate about raising self storage’s profile as an institutional grade asset class, as well as the financial and ethical case for ESG and creating good buildings and places - all massively relevant to the future of our industry.

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Rennie Schafer

CEO, SSA UK & FEDESSA

Rennie is the current CEO of the Self Storage Association UK & FEDESSA, having previously been the CEO of the Australasian Self Storage Association for over 9 years.  Rennie has extensive knowledge of the self storage industry across the world, from the developing Asian markets through to the birthplace of self storage in the USA.  He has over 22 years of association management experience 17 at CEO level.  Rennie is also on the Board of the Institute of Association Leadership, has an MBA and completed the Oxford University High performance leadership programme.

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Steve Silvester

Clear Sky Capital

Mr. Silvester began his commercial real estate career 15 years ago. He joined forces with Clear Sky Capital, as they launched their UK Self-Storage efforts, as CFO and partner in Padlock Capital Partners. He is actively involved with the capital stack both from institutional investors and public market IPO’s, debt raising, development, investor communications and collaboration across the platforms. Prior to joining Clear Sky, Mr. Silvester was Chief Financial Officer for Palace Capital plc, a publicly-listed REIT in the UK, which focused on UK regional commercial property investment and development. Mr. Silvester’s public company experience has covered managing investor relations, investment banking, REIT conversion, foreign exchange matters and consolidating acquisitions.

Clear Sky Capital is a privately owned real estate investment management and development company with offices in the United States and United Kingdom. Clear Sky and its affiliates have acquired or developed over £1.1 Billion of real estate investments since 2009. Through Clear Sky and it’s UK Subsidiary, Padlock Capital Partners, Mr. Silvester has been instrumental in growing the self-storage property count to 19 Locations across the UK with 4 more under contract. The company operates under the “Collective Self Storage” and “StoreQuest” banners in the US and “Cinch Self Storage” in the UK.

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