Alex McQuade

Alex McQuade

Alex co-ordinates the building process.  Alex has over 30 years of experience of medium and large construction projects.

He spent his formative years in construction  as an estimator, contracts controller ,contracts manager  and in sales. Alex obtained an MIOB ( Member Institute of Building) in 1976 .

Alex started his own construction business in 1978 and continued as Managing Director until 1990 . The core business was design/build industrial buildings.

Group turnover in 1990 was £10m.

In 1990 decided to move onto property development and formed a new business called Portal Holdings. Here, his core business was development of industrial estates and business parks. Business model was to work in JV’s with pension funds and investors to create investment products.

He is ideally placed with his extensive experience for bringing in small and large building projects on time and within budget.

Ray McLennan

Ray McLennan

Although qualified as a Solicitor in Scotland, Ray is actually a Portfolio entrepreneur who has owned an operated a series of businesses in the last 25 years which includes retail and residential building refurbishment.

Always one to rise to a challenge, it was Ray who saw that the problems in the Affordable Housing sector were dragging on and not getting any better.

The problems could be fixed but they needed a bit of creative thinking and some expertise.

Ray approached Alex McQuade to test the viability of the project for Scotland.

After extensive research on the figures and the viability of each individual project, Designed Living Limited was created to address the affordable housing shortfall in Scotland and the rest of the UK.

There is significant interest from Housing Associations and Local Authorities and Ray has an extensive network of contacts in all areas that have expressed serious interest.

Ray is the Edinburgh host of Progressive property who meet at 6.30pm on the second Tuesday of each month at The Caledonian Hotel (now Waldorf Astoria) Princes Street, Edinburgh. He is also an extensive public speaker on property issues and raising investment for property proposals with Angels Den.

Ray is the majority shareholder of Designed Living Limited and a lifelong member of B1G1 who regularly donates to their worthy cause projects.  His Giving impact is below: