Samuel is focused on investment strategy, management, and creative direction at Kinrise. He is also a trustee of Charity: Water and Hackney. Church, and co-founded eyewear brand Finlay London. Samuel has worked in UK commercial real estate for 14 years, with former roles as an equity partner at Cording Real Estate Group, and Investment Director of FORE Partnership.

• Our name “Kinsrise” –  Is from the kinsmen redeemer story and combine it with this sense of rising. And for us, the rising part is about inclusiveness and about all of the whole community and the whole family rising together. So we just jammed two words together and when you jam two words together, it’s easier to legally protect it as well. So that was the genesis of the name. – Sam Johnson
• We have a vision and that is for the renewal of all things in cities  – Sam Johnson
• In everything we do, we start with the human lens or the human capital. So how do we design for personal flourishing in this building or in this coworking space or in this group of buildings or in this city or in our teams? And that’s very personal. – Sam Johnson
• We believe those who risk their capital deserve that return in exchange for risking it. – Sam Johnson
• We say we really try to use sophisticated real estate, investment, and development tools and practices, but also have it matched with care and love. – John Marsh
•  When you’re generous with space you might create an atmosphere that you would never have created, which drives higher or faster leasing, higher retention, even higher rents. And we’ve seen that, evidence of that in our portfolio.-  Sam Johnson
• A friend who’s based in Manchester said, “When you start renovating a historic building, it fights back.” 
• You’re using your buildings as a platform for change for these different, instead of just a product to lease, but actually a platform to do the work.  – John Marsh
• it’s like changing the tire on a car while you’re driving. – John Marsh
• We learned there was that coworking as a business model is horrible if you’re a tenant as a coworking space because you’re taking along liability and then short income from your members. –  Sam Johnson
• Community manager, I suppose, in real estate now, but is someone with a deep heart for people and for bringing people together and for people thriving. And we have that heart for all our buildings and all our tenants. And so our community managers are an extension of that in the buildings. And they’re the first point of contact in a building and they’re there to welcome people the first time they ever look at the building to show them around. And if that person commits and moves in, they’re there to help them settle in, help introduce them to people, and then to help really encourage the tenants and the residents of the building to interact with others and to teach and to learn within the space.  –  Sam Johnson
• (Pastors) It’s amazing. It’s so perfectly aligned for them to love on people, for you to help them by having a place, to have an income, and to do that. So will there be one community manager usually or this role of the kind of almost chaplain over each facility over each building?  –  Sam Johnson
• And often landlords are seen in the US as predatory and not collaborative. And we completely want to change that lens for people that they see us as their most valued partner and instead of a predatory person that is trying to extract the most out of them. – John Marsh
• And often landlords are seen in the US as predatory and not collaborative. And we completely want to change that lens for people that they see us as their most valued partner and instead of a predatory person that is trying to extract the most out of them.  –  Sam Johnson
• But there’s a real opportunity to reframe that relationship. And ultimately the tenant is a customer of the landlord, so should be treated as a customer.  –  Sam Johnson
• every time we treat people with love, dignity, and respect, and we exceed their expectations and we operate in a way that’s relational, and that has care.  – John Marsh
• normally construction starts like a honeymoon and ends like a divorce. At the beginning they’re bringing you biscuits and happy with you and at the end, they’re like, “Get off the property, finish what you’re doing.” – John Marsh

• Completing Capitalism – Heal Business to Heal the World by Bruno Roche and Jay Jakub
• Steve Cockram of GiANT
• Finlay eyewear

What have you read that we should read?

• Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson

Who do you know that we should know?

• Clayborn Temple in Memphis, TN

Where have you been that we should go?

• Mountains wherever they are or getting into the ocean wherever it is.  It’s a place that definitely resizes me.