Paul Kallee-Grover
Paul Kallee-Grover MBE is the Group Planning Director at The Leith Group, a town and country planning consultancy which is also involved in construction, investment and property management.
Career Overview
Paul is a business executive with decades of experience and before joining The Leith Group in 2020 worked for names such as Arup and Avison Young.
In his role with The Leith Group, Paul works with investors and landowners to maximise the value in their assets by utilising his town and country planning expertise. He is also a chartered planner and member of the Institute of Economic Development, which advises clients on all aspects of commercial development and urban regeneration.
Paul is also part of the CREA IDEA Lab expert circle in Barcelona, for which he provides the ‘Think Tank’ as well as advising clients in relation to smart buildings and urban development.
He also chairs the Liverpool-China Partnership and is a Northern Powerhouse Export Champion for the Department of International Trade. In his export champion role, he is a regular speaker on issues such as inward investment and export of goods and services. He was also an inaugural Board of Trade Award recipient in recognition for his work in supporting international trade. With the Liverpool-China Partnership, he actively promotes opportunities for UK firms in China, as well as opportunities in the UK for Chinese business partners.
For his work in establishing trade links with China in northwest England, Paul was awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2021.
Paul is an established public speaker through his work and has featured as a guest speaker at the New Economics Forum and at a series of technical exchanges in China on the subject of Low Carbon Planning and Water Management for the European China Link. He also regularly appears at the Liverpool Hope University Business School on international trade and has given lectures at the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moore’s University on the subject of urban regeneration.
Paul is immensely passionate about entrepreneurship and future business leaders and has strived to promote this at various other forums. This includes featuring as a guest speaker at the Chinese Dao Xing Future Leaders Conference in London. He also represented the city of Manchester at the Common Purpose Itijah Venture in Abu Dhabi, focusing on how to foster entrepreneurialism within Muslim communities. Paul also facilitated the establishment of the International Waterfront Forum, which involves leading waterfront cities from around the world uniting to discuss common issues annually. As a result of this headway, he submitted a paper to the International Society of City and Regional Planners and presented his work at its 51st Congress in the Netherlands.
Paul is a champion for diversity in the workplace and specialises in neurodiversity. His work in this area involves careful leadership and encouraging and enabling others to bring out the best version of themselves and perform to the best of their ability.
Education
Paul attended Cardiff University from 1993 to 1998, where he completed a Degree in City & Regional Planning, encompassing Planning, Environment, Law, Economics and Urban Design. He later attended the Sloan School of Management within the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied Resilience in Urban Systems for one year.
