Advanced Search

Meet the React News team


Editorial Team

Chris Borland

Editorial Director

Chris brings a unique angle to real estate reporting having worked across the industry as an agent, communications adviser and journalist at two of  the biggest publications – CoStar News and Property Week. At CoStar, over a five-year period, Chris led a concerted push to deliver more exclusive news to the ‘Big 6’ regional cities and drove market engagement.

A contact list stretching the length and breadth of the UK & Ireland helped Chris establish himself as one the country’s leading regional journalists.

James Buckley

Editorial Director

James has been covering the UK commercial property markets since 2008, making him one of the most experienced journalists currently working in the sector.

He started his career in commercial real estate at Estates Gazette where he spent four years working as an editor on the news desk. In 2012, James was recruited to help establish CoStar’s UK news service. As part of a team of three senior editors, James took CoStar News from a standing start to one of the UK’s most-read property news sites in just three years.

James has a vast contact base across all levels of the property industry and has a track record of breaking the news of some of the largest investment transactions, with a particular focus on the London markets.

David Hatcher

Editorial Director

David has been embedded into the top tier of the real estate market since the start of his career. After spending seven years at Property Week where he was Finance Editor, he went on to launch the website of debt and finance specialist publication, Real Estate Capital. Most recently he spent four years at Estates Gazette where, as Head of Content, he was a key part of the leadership group.

David has a particular depth of expertise and contact base in corporate M&A, debt, fund management and logistics.

Andy Plowman

Head of Editorial Operations

Andy Plowman

Head of Editorial Operations

Bringing 15 years’ unparalleled experience of editorial production for both customer and B2B built environment titles, Andy is uniquely placed to ensure React’s content is of the highest possible standard for both our subscribers and our stakeholders.

As an editor and then head of content at customer publishing house Sunday, Andy headed up the production of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ flagship title, Modus. He worked closely with the client in shaping its content programme, commissioning articles, and helping steer through the transition of the title from a print publication to online platform.

Andy joined Sunday from Property Week, where he was deputy chief sub-editor. Across nearly seven years with the title he developed a deep working knowledge of the industry and a laser focus on detail in a fast-paced newsroom… as well as a much-needed sense of humour.

Julie Cruz

Managing Editor – Europe

Julie Cruz

Managing Editor – Europe

Julie has been a financial journalist for over 10 years. She covered global equities and Europe’s retail/consumer-goods sector for Bloomberg News in London and Frankfurt before becoming the managing editor of Property Investor Europe in 2016 – overseeing a team of reporters and editors across Europe. In 2019, she led the rebranding of the publication as it increased its focus on institutional investors and fundraising and became Real Estate Fund Intelligence.

Originally from France, Julie spent more than eight years in Germany before moving back to London in 2017. She has been covering all European real estate markets across asset classes for almost five years and has a vast contact base in the industry.

Julie oversees React News’ European coverage, breaking news on major capital markets deals and fundraising and writing heavyweight analysis and interviews.

Guy Montague-Jones

Managing Editor – UK & Ireland

Guy Montague-Jones

Managing Editor – UK & Ireland

Guy is a highly experienced and award-winning property journalist. He spent six years at Property Week, working in various senior roles including latterly as Deputy Editor. He has a strong track record of breaking news stories and writing incisive analysis and comment pieces across a broad range of topics. His areas of expertise include listed real estate, fund management and debt.

Before Property Week, Guy covered the supermarket and food industry at The Grocer, one of the UK’s biggest trade publications. He started his journalism career at Decision News Media in France.

Charlie Schouten

Northern Editor and Deputy Managing Editor – UK & Ireland

Charlie Schouten

Northern Editor and Deputy Managing Editor – UK & Ireland

Charlie has extensive experience covering property and construction, with a special focus on the North of England, having worked for Construction News and Place North West.

He started his career as Construction News’ Northern Correspondent, and then moved Place North West in Manchester, initially as a senior reporter and then as a deputy editor. With extensive contacts across construction, property, architecture, and investment community across the North, Charlie has a focus on exclusive news content and interviews.

Born, raised, and based in Manchester, Charlie is passionate about covering all aspects of property in the region. Some of Charlie’s biggest exclusive stories have been Renaker’s purchase of Trinity Islands in Manchester, revealing the location of BT’s new Manchester regional hub and GCHQ’s Manchester city centre office and the anchor tenant Liverpool’s £200m Pall Mall.

Alessia Pirolo

Finance Editor and Deputy Managing Editor – Europe

Alessia Pirolo

Finance Editor and Deputy Managing Editor – Europe

Alessia has more than 10 years’ experience in business and financial journalism with focus on banking, distressed debt, and real estate. She has a unique expertise in the non-performing loans market having covered most NPL deals across Europe since 2015, for a total volume of almost €600bn.

For five years at Debtwire, she moved from being a reporter to developing and being in charge of an NPL-focused product combining breaking news, data, and analysis.

Previously, she covered US and European commercial real estate for the Wall Street Journal and the Commercial Observer. Alessia started her career as a journalist covering the court in her hometown Padua for the local issue of Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera. She holds a masters degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

As a finance editor at React News she covers the distressed debt market, loan origination and refinancing.

Jessica Middleton-Pugh

Residential and Retail Editor

Jessica Middleton-Pugh

Residential and Retail Editor

Jessica Middleton-Pugh is React News’ residential and retail correspondent, leading on expanding the publication’s coverage of these diverse and rapidly-changing sectors.

She was previously editor of leading regional property news website Place North West, guiding editorial and event coverage over the course of six years in the retail, residential, industrial, and commercial markets, and acting as the face of the business to readers made up of property investors, developers, councils, advisors, architects and contractors.

Alexander Peace

Analysis Editor

Alexander is an experienced property journalist and researcher. He spent four years at EG (then Estates Gazette) as its residential and data correspondent, before which he held roles in communications and as an analyst for industry benchmark provider IPD/MSCI.

He specialises in analysis and in-depth pieces across the sectors, though has a passion for all things policy, planning, regeneration and residential.

He moved to France in 2019 and spent three years on construction sites as an electrician before returning to real estate journalism in 2023.

Ross Basham

Chief Sub-editor

Ross Basham

Chief Sub-editor

Ross is a highly experienced journalist, having clocked up almost 20 years working across a diverse range of newspapers, magazines and digital agencies. He started out as a reporter on local papers in south London before deciding his meticulous eye for detail was best suited to sub-editing. Ross worked his way up to the Guardian/Observer, where he spent 10 years editing in a fast-paced newsroom.

Before joining React Ross was chief sub-editor at digital agency Zone, where he was responsible for the quality, accuracy and consistency of all of the agency’s editorial output, managing a team of three sub-editors producing content for the likes of BMW Group, Lloyds Bank, Aviva and Adidas.

Ross’s primary focus at React is ensuring the highest possible editorial standards are maintained for our subscribers.

Mira Kaizl

Senior German Correspondent

Mira Kaizl

Senior German Correspondent

Mira has a deep knowledge of all real estate sectors and their German protagonists. She loves interviewing people as much as digging in business reports if they might contain a well-hidden news story.

Prior to joining React, Mira was senior news editor at German news provider Thomas Daily, where she worked for over a decade, overseeing the coverage of German fund companies, portfolio transactions and logistics real estate.

Mira has a masters degree in Spanish literature and journalism. Before becoming a real estate journalist in 2012, she worked for a German local newspaper, and as a freelance business journalist.

Michael Minarzik

Senior German Correspondent

Michael Minarzik

Senior German Correspondent

Michael specialises in exclusive news on commercial deals, lettings and new project developments and can call on an extensive network of key players. Together with Mira Kaizl, he forms the German team at React News and reports on the most important news from the top German locations.

Michael joined React from CoStar and Thomas Daily, where he spent 16 years covering German property market events, most recently as senior editor focusing on southern Germany and Munich in particular.

Raised in Düsseldorf, he has lived in Freiburg in south-west Germany since 1999.

Robert Hinneburg

Senior German Correspondent

Robert Hinneburg

Senior German Correspondent

Robert has been working as a real estate editor in Germany since 2008, and has since built up a broad base of knowledge across all asset classes, as well as a large network of contacts in the industry.

He joined React after spending 15 years at Thomas Daily and CoStar, including 13 years as head of department for Berlin and eastern Germany. He holds a degree in urban geography, cartography and sociology.

Robert grew up in Berlin and spent more than 30 years there, and although he has lived in Freiburg since 2007, the real estate market of his home city is particularly close to his heart.

Amy Finch

Senior European Correspondent

Amy Finch

Senior European Correspondent

Amy is a senior European correspondent who leads reporting European residential property transactions, trends and dynamics at React News. She joined the team from Debtwire, where most recently she was responsible for coverage of non-performing loan transactions across Europe.

Before that she was a data journalist reporting on loan portfolio sales and compiled a comprehensive database of European deals as well as producing regular long-form analysis features on the NPL market.

Amy has a masters degree in journalism from City University, as well as a masters in biology from Bristol University.

Rebecca Christou

Senior sub-editor

Rebecca Christou

Senior sub-editor

Rebecca is React News’s senior sub-editor, bringing more than 10 years of editing experience to the team. She has previously worked at a range of publications, most recently including Auto Express, Inside Housing and EG. She studied journalism at UAL’s LCC college.

Francesco Magon

French Correspondent

Based in Paris, Francesco focuses on all regions and sectors across France. As an expert on French politics and news, he also studies and analyses the impact they have on the real estate business.

Before joining React News, Francesco covered legal news for Leaders League-Décidéurs, and sport for Autonews.fr. In addition to online reporting, Francesco works as a radio reporter at Radio Aligre FM. He also regularly attends cultural projects organised by the Italian consulate in Paris.

Originally from Italy, Francesco moved to Paris in 2017. He speaks Italian, French and English, and has a bachelors degree from the Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna and a masters degree from the Sorbonne University.

Elena Dragulele

Logistics Correspondent

Elena Dragulele

Logistics Correspondent

Elena is a reporter and content strategist with a knack for telling stories and a flair for detail. She joined React News from PropertyEU in 2022, where she focused on breaking deals across the UK and continental Europe.

As a pan-European logistics reporter, she reports on transactions and trends across continental Europe.

Elena has a degree in international relations from Queen Mary University of London, is originally from Romania and also speaks Spanish.

Natasha Voase

Finance Reporter

Natasha reports on the financing side of the real estate industry for React News.

She joined React from Rothschild & Co where she worked as an investment banker in the real estate team.

Natasha holds a degree in History (1st class) from the University of Oxford and a French Law degree from université Panthéon-Assas.

Lovelyn Tagalag

News Analyst

Lovelyn Tagalag

News Analyst

Lovelyn was a news writer from S&P Market Intelligence, where she gained valuable experience in writing healthcare and financial news stories, including in-depth and exclusive articles.

Prior to that, she was part of a Manila-based team that was monitoring television and radio news for an Australian company. She also previously worked as a document analyst, which allowed her to become familiar with various industries across the globe.

Lovelyn works for Straive on behalf of React News, providing support to deliver the most relevant commercial real estate news in the UK and Europe.

May Agaran

News Analyst

May Agaran

News Analyst

May is a content writer and editor with more than 20 years’ experience in the publishing industry. She has previously worked in both print and digital, and more recently, in e-commerce.

She has extensive experience of writing for online, using SEO, and sourcing content.

May works for Straive on behalf of React News, providing support to deliver the most relevant commercial real estate news in the UK and Europe.

Commercial Team

Olivia Houlder

Head of Partnerships

Olivia Houlder

Head of Partnerships

Olivia has over a decade experience in advertising, marketing and sponsorship, specialising in commercial relationships and corporate partnerships.

She joined React News from Cirque du Soleil, where she managed large international partnerships for six years, and she now heads up React‘s advertising sales, client relationships and marketing.

Will Judd

Team Leader - Sales

Will Judd

Team Leader - Sales

Georgia Byass

Business Development Executive

Georgia Byass

Business Development Executive

Georgia joined React News after graduating from Newcastle University with a BA Hons Fine Art & History of Art degree.

Georgia’s role within the team consists of approaching new prospects and setting up trial accesses and meetings in order to drive the top-line activity metrics at React News.

Isabella Hills

Business Development Executive

Isabella Hills

Business Development Executive

Issy joined React News from UK SME lender Growth Lending, where she was involved in the marketing, from branding to working alongside the sales team to generate new business through weekly campaigns and webinars.

Prior to that, she worked for 5 years in fashion production, assisting talent for leading publications including Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.