Forest City · Who we are
Who is behind Forest City?
Forest City is led by co-founders Shiv Malik, a former Guardian investigative journalist, and Joe Reeve, through the company ACDC. They are backed by an advisory board including Paul Johnson, Patricia Hewitt and Tim Leunig, alongside 40+ architects, engineers and lawyers working pro bono, and the National Federation of Builders.
We're not developers — we're not trying to make money from building homes, land banking, or planning flipping. We're doing this because it's become impossible for most young people to buy a home and have children, and we think East Anglia has been under-invested in by successive governments.
ACDC Ltd. won’t be the ones building anything. Our job, much like Seb Coe with the Olympics, is to prove viability, provide a plan, and prepare the ground for a government-led development — the way Canary Wharf was built.
And we're not alone. Forest City's advisory board and working groups include Paul Johnson, former director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies; Patricia Hewitt, former Secretary of State for Trade and for Health; Tim Leunig, economic adviser to two Chancellors; Steve McAdam, masterplanner of King's Cross and the Olympic Park; and Jackie Sadek, chair of the London–Cambridge Innovation Corridor — alongside more than forty architects, engineers, hydrologists, transport planners and housing lawyers who have given their expertise pro bono. The National Federation of Builders has publicly backed the proposal.
Meet the full team on our People page.