Who's speaking at KCON26?
KCon 2026 brings together a line-up of people who have shaped businesses, influenced public debate, and helped redefine what growth looks like in property.
Under the theme Built on Trust, this year’s event focuses on leadership with substance. The speakers are not there to offer abstract ideas or recycled motivational talking points. They represent real scale, commercial results, and the kind of decision-making that changes how businesses perform.
If you want to hear from the people influencing property from the inside, while also learning from leaders in politics, economics, communications, and global brands, this is a programme worth paying attention to.
Hosted by Dara Ó Briain
KCon 2026 will be hosted by Dara Ó Briain, best known for his fast, intelligent style and for fronting some of the best-known programmes on British and Irish television, including Mock the Week. His presence gives the event a strong anchor: sharp, quick-thinking, and capable of drawing out the best from a room full of big personalities and serious operators.
Alastair Campbell
Alastair Campbell remains one of the most recognisable communications figures in Britain. Best known as Tony Blair’s former press secretary and Director of Communications, he played a central role in shaping political messaging during the New Labour years. His reputation for discipline, media control, and message strategy made him one of the most discussed figures in British public life.
Today, he is known to many through his writing, broadcasting, and as co-host of The Rest Is Politics, one of the UK’s most prominent political podcasts. He brings a perspective on leadership, reputation, pressure, and trust that feels especially relevant in a sector where public perception, credibility, and communication increasingly affect commercial outcomes.
Kevin Gaskell
Kevin Gaskell’s career is built on business transformation at the highest level. At just 32, he was appointed Managing Director of Porsche UK at a time when the business was close to bankruptcy. Within four years, he had taken it to number one in its market while making it the most profitable car company in the UK.
He later held leadership roles across Porsche, Lamborghini, and BMW, working inside some of the world’s most valuable automotive brands. His track record makes him one of the strongest voices on the programme when it comes to performance, culture, leadership, and the operational discipline required to turn brand strength into commercial results.
His session will explore lessons from global businesses where trust is not created through positioning alone, but earned through delivery, consistency, and culture.
Josh Phegan
Josh Phegan is one of the best-known coaches and strategists working in estate agency performance today. He works with agents in the UK and internationally, helping them improve listing strategies, strengthen leadership, increase team performance, and refine client experience.
What makes his appearance especially notable is that KCon will be his only UK conference appearance in 2026. For agents and business leaders who follow his work, that alone makes this a rare opportunity to hear from him in person.
His sessions will focus on how trust is developed in agency businesses. Not as a slogan, but as a practical outcome of how leaders behave, how teams perform, and how client experience is delivered day after day.
Adam Day
Adam Day is the International Expansion Leader at eXp Realty and a central figure in one of the most significant agency growth stories in recent years. Since launching eXp UK in 2019, he has scaled the network to more than 850 self-employed agents, making it the largest estate agency brand by volume in the country.
That growth is significant not just because of the headline figure, but because it reflects a wider shift in how agency businesses are being built. Day has been ahead of this change before. In 2006, he founded Hatched.co.uk, one of the UK’s first online estate agencies, before selling it to Connells Group in 2015.
He now leads expansion across Europe, India, and Dubai, bringing a perspective shaped by scale, network growth, and changing business models.
Verona Frankish
Verona Frankish is one of the most established leaders in the UK property sector. As CEO of Yopa Property, she has led the hybrid agency through a period of significant growth and profitability since taking the helm in 2022.
Her career spans nearly 30 years and includes senior leadership roles at Purplebricks, Mortgage Advice Bureau, and Marks & Spencer. That breadth matters. It gives her insight not just into agency, but into how consumer-facing businesses grow, differentiate, and improve performance at scale.
Alongside her executive work, she is Chair of Women in Estate Agency and was named Woman of the Year – Residential at the Inspiring Women in Property Awards. She brings both commercial weight and wider industry influence to the stage.
Gemma Warne
Gemma Warne is Co-Founder and Director of Agent Marketer, a digital marketing agency specialising in lead generation for estate and letting agents. Her work stands out because it is tied to clear commercial outcomes.
Over the past year alone, Agent Marketer has generated more than 100,000 leads for agents through highly targeted paid advertising campaigns. Her approach is rooted in performance, with clients often seeing returns of 3x, 10x, and in some cases 27x on their advertising investment.
For agencies under pressure to justify every pound spent on marketing, those figures tell their own story. Her perspective is likely to be particularly relevant for businesses looking to connect growth ambitions with measurable return.
Clare Yates
Clare Yates is a respected consultant and trainer with more than 30 years’ experience across the residential property and legal sectors. Her work focuses on the commercial points in the customer journey that often decide whether a business grows or stalls.
She helps property agents and law firms improve business generation, build stronger client relationships, and increase conversion from inbound enquiries. She also supports teams to win more instructions, overcome fee objections, and communicate more effectively with clients and stakeholders.
Her expertise sits in the part of the business that directly affects revenue, trust, and client confidence.
Simon Gates
Simon Gates is one of the property industry’s best-known performance-led consultants, with more than 15 years of experience spanning estate agency, proptech, and advisory work. He began his career in estate agency in 2009 before launching his consultancy, Opening the Gates.
His work has made him an influential figure for businesses looking to improve performance, sharpen strategy, and adapt to changing operating conditions. In 2026, he was appointed Non-Executive Director at Open Moove, adding further weight to his role as a strategic voice in the sector.
Robert Guest
Robert Guest brings a broader economic and geopolitical perspective to the event. As Deputy Editor of The Economist, he is known for his reporting on global migration, development, trade, and the forces shaping economies around the world.
He has reported from more than 100 countries and is the author of The Shackled Continent and Borderless Economics. His analysis connects global trends with business reality, which makes his contribution particularly relevant at a time when property markets are shaped by factors far beyond local demand alone.
His perspective offers a wider frame for understanding confidence, movement, investment, and the economic pressures affecting both businesses and consumers.
Toby Martin
Toby Martin is a prominent consultant, trainer, and speaker in the UK property space. Formerly a director at a Bath-based lettings agency, he founded Toby Martin Consultancy & Training in 2024 to help estate and letting agents build more memorable, more visible businesses.
His work focuses on personality-led marketing, video content, and AI automation. In a crowded market, where many firms struggle to stand out or create consistency in how they present themselves, that focus on distinctiveness is commercially important. He brings a practical perspective on how agencies can build stronger brands without losing operational focus.
Why this line-up matters
What makes this programme distinctive is not just recognisable names. It is the breadth of commercial and strategic experience behind them.
Taken together, these speakers represent:
- major business turnarounds and profitability
- large-scale network growth
- high-performing lead generation
- leadership in hybrid and digital-first models
- expertise in communications, economics, and public trust
Some have built brands that changed the shape of their market. Some have led businesses through growth and profitability. Others influence how leaders think, how teams perform, and how businesses respond to pressure.
For anyone working in property, KCon offers the chance to hear from people whose decisions, ideas, and results are helping define what the industry looks like next.
KCon 2026 is built around leadership, trust, and growth. To be part of it, reserve your ticket here.
