Meet Our Team
Otium has been founded by experienced professionals in the property and leisure sectors. The wider team comprises best-in-class advisers and consultants from the leisure real estate sector who support Otium.
Ashley is a chartered surveyor and fellow of the RICS. He has had extensive experience in the commercial property sector over the last 26 years.
Most recently at Land Securities, the UK’s biggest REIT, he was responsible for a £4bn retail and leisure portfolio leading the investment, asset management, property management, marketing, research and leasing functions. During his time at Land Securities his portfolio acquired £760m of new leisure assets and asset-managed over £1.3bn of leisure property.
He led the successful takeover of an unlisted real estate fund, X-Leisure, that enabled Land Securities to deploy £600m into the leisure sector.
Before Land Securities, he co-managed a boutique real estate fund manager, Lathe Investments, for six years, which operated a series of retail real estate funds across the UK, Spain and Sweden.
Ashley started his career at Cushman and Wakefield, a leading international property consultancy, where for eight years he advised on retail and leisure investment and development funding transactions.
Michelle is a chartered accountant with over 27 years of experience.
Prior to this, she spent 11 years as chief financial officer for Aspira Holdings which invested in health clubs and hotels across Europe with holdings over €150m. The role included significant property transactions including cross-border developments and sale and leasebacks.
Prior to that Michelle was at Roffe Swayne for four years as corporate finance partner advising SMEs on acquisitions, disposals, MBOs and debt restructuring.
She began her accounting career at KPMG starting in audit and eventually leading an M&A department as a corporate finance director. She spent 12 years at KPMG.