Conversation with… Claire Barber, Chief Executive of SGS
In this latest Conversations interview, we chat with Claire Barber, Chief Executive of SGS, about her impressive career in the retail property sector and what drives successful retail destinations today.
Can you tell us how your career began and how it’s evolved over time?
I started in retail consultancy over 25 years ago, working for Donaldsons. I specialised in shopping centre asset and property management from early on, so retail has always been my core focus. I did spend a brief period, around two years, in the student accommodation sector, which was a valuable learning experience, but it really confirmed just how much I love retail.
From there, I moved into roles that had a bigger development focus. I joined Grosvenor and worked on Liverpool ONE, where I was Head of Leasing. That project was an incredible opportunity; delivering 42 acres in the heart of a city like Liverpool was intense, but also really rewarding.
Never Miss a Retail Update!After Grosvenor, I worked on the development of Terminal 5 at Heathrow, overseeing all the non-aviation income streams, predominantly retail. That was fascinating because customer behaviour in an airport is so different from a traditional shopping environment.
I then joined British Land and stayed for 13 years. I worked in a variety of roles there, including head of shopping centres and working in central London retail. After that, I moved to Cadogan, as Asset Management Director, managing their property portfolio in Chelsea, which included Sloane Street, and Kings Road. It was great to be somewhere where long-term stewardship is at the core of decision making.
And now, I’m here at SGS Group. I’ve been Chief Executive for around eight months, and it’s been fantastic so far.
Can you tell us more about SGS’s shopping centres?
SGS owns four prime shopping centres: Lakeside in Essex, Braehead in Glasgow, Victoria Centre in Nottingham, and atria Watford, which we’re rebranding to its former name of Harlequin.
What’s been really encouraging is how well these centres are performing. We’re currently at about 96% occupancy, footfall is growing, and our income is up. It’s hard work, but I feel very positive about where we are.
A big part of that is due to having capital investment available. That means we can continue improving the centres by enhancing the retail mix and focusing on the customer experience. You can really tell which retail destinations in the UK have lacked investment, and fortunately, ours are in a much stronger position.
What do you enjoy most about your role? And what does a typical day look like?
I love the pace – it’s fast-moving and high-pressure, but in a good way. We can make decisions quickly, and I feel like we’re genuinely making progress every day.
There’s no such thing as a typical day. I might be on site working with centre teams planning improvements, or I could be deep into spreadsheets, looking at income forecasts, or reviewing our progress against our asset strategies
The variety is one of the best things about working in retail property. It’s never boring. And I keep coming back to the customer – because we’re shaping places that people feel connected to. That’s a real privilege and really is what drives me. That sense of local identity and belonging matters. And it’s something retail has the power to foster.
What do you think are the most important factors in making a shopping centre successful these days?
Well, it sounds really obvious, but your customer needs to be at the heart of everything you do.
I think it’s important to have a range of reasons to visit. People don’t necessarily wake up on a Saturday thinking, “Oh, I want to go shopping.” They might think, “I need to do something,” or “I’ve got some leisure time,” or whatever it might be. But they’re also thinking about health and fitness, food, other leisure activities – even grocery shopping. That broad spectrum makes an enormous difference.
Convenience and accessibility are important too – being able to park, get there easily, all of that. I also think landlords need to be active and dynamic in managing centres, whether it’s through events or carefully curating the retail mix, it matters.
This is something we’re extremely focused on at SGS – having the right brands in the right locations and in the right-sized stores. There’s nothing more frustrating than going somewhere expecting to find something, only to discover that the store’s too small to stock it.
And thinking a bit more about our portfolio – if you take as an example, Lakeside – it’s called Lakeside for a reason; it’s by a massive lake! There’s a huge opportunity there to think about leisure; whether it’s wild swimming, saunas, entertainment or food & drink , it’s about thinking creatively beyond just retail. That broader experience makes destinations much more successful.
What do you see as the main challenges and opportunities facing shopping centres over the next couple of years?
It’s widely acknowledged that we’ve got too many shops. I think we’ll continue to see more polarisation – the flight to prime. Secondary and tertiary retail is difficult and has been for a while.
In terms of retail demand, we’re starting to see that supply-and-demand tension in our prime centres, which is an opportunity for us. But for others, the challenge is the opposite – too much supply and not enough demand.
You also see a lot of underinvestment, particularly in capex, and that’s hard to turn around if you’re not getting rental growth. Some destinations simply aren’t going to remain retail-focused going forward, but that may also present opportunities
Can you share any future plans?
We’re investing heavily in all our centres this summer – including renaming Atria back to Harlequin.
At Lakeside, we’ve got a major new Next store opening as well as a big store for JD. We’ve also got exciting plans to capitalise on the lake as I mentioned earlier. And a former M&S space is being split between leisure and retail. M&S opened a new store at Lakeside at the end of 2023 and it’s performing really well.
In Watford, Charter Place opened a couple of years ago and has been very successful. We actually had our busiest footfall day ever there recently. We’re now looking at enhancing the centre’s food offer to attract more evening visitors. The local catchment is incredible so the opportunity is huge.
In Nottingham, there are around 65,000 students, but the food offer in the city isn’t as exciting as it could be, so, we’re looking at what we can do there to better appeal to that student market. We’re also working on repurposing the House of Fraser store.
Braehead in Glasgow is a very interesting destination. It trades exceptionally well – much better than people might expect. There’s a big arena there, home to an ice hockey team. They’ve invested in a new flooring system, so what used to take three days to convert from ice hockey space to a general arena now takes just two to three hours.
That shift will allow the arena to host many more events. Having an arena that seats around 5,500 people is an incredible anchor for a shopping centre and the capacity is a real sweet spot in the Scottish events space.
One of the opportunities we’re looking at across the portfolio is creating more spaces that can support pop-ups, experiential retail, events and even community functions.
It’s about creating a place where people want to be. And to do that, we’ve got to be in tune with the community, listen constantly, and be brave enough to change things when they’re not working.
We talk a lot about relevance. If we’re not relevant to our communities and customers anymore, we lose them. So that’s always the lens we come back to – how does this make a centre more relevant, more engaging, more useful?
If you could give one piece of advice to someone starting out in the retail property world right now, what would it be?
I think I’d say be curious. Never stop asking questions, never assume you know the answer, and always be looking at the world around you. The best ideas often come from unexpected places.
