Kate-Lily de Graft-Johnson

Kate-Lily joined British Land three years ago having worked in various industries including Higher Education, Television and Tech.

At British Land, Kate-Lily has demonstrated high skills, professionalism, dedication and been a mentor, motivator, and supporter of employees at Broadgate with a focus on Employee Wellbeing and Diversity.

Born to Ghanaian immigrant parents, Kate-Lily was bought up in an inner-city area, part of the EC1 New Deal programme of the 2000s. The EC1 New Deal was a Government programme to raise and improve the community’s deprived profile. Kate-Lily attended St Marylebone Secondary school for Girls and studied law at Brunel University. After graduating from university, Kate-Lily’s first job was Widening Participation and Community Engagement Admin Assistant for City University London before progressing to a Widening Participation Projects Officer. Here Kate-Lily’s work, focused on creating, coordinating, and delivering outreach projects with the purpose of helping young people (aged 5 – 19) fulfil their potential through “AimHigher “- a government initiative to encourage young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to consider Higher Education.

After four years at City University London, Kate-Lily spent two years working in the Television Industry; a short time backpacking across South East Asia followed by four years in Tech; before arriving at British Land, where she has flourished within the Broadgate team.

Kate-Lily’s current role has enabled her to evaluate her values and work ethics. She is passionate about the wellbeing of colleagues as well as demonstrating awareness of diversity across the workplace and in projects. She is a member of several Wellbeing and Diversity Committees at work and a champion and supporter for Wellbeing and Diversity activities at Broadgate and British Land.

As Central Services Manager, she has helped with the refurbishment of the Estate Management office, supported the roll out of Broadgate’s new branded uniform to over 500 employees and contributed to the creation of Broadgate’s Wellbeing and Diversity strategies, creating guides to support the framework of both.

Kate-Lily’s strength lies with people interaction and building effective working relationships. She is a good organiser and has demonstrated such skill in many events at Broadgate.
She can deliver on all three Broadgate values of: Connecting, Surprising and Empowering. Examples include surprising the team with wellbeing boxes full of personalised items; connecting colleagues with opportunities or lending a listening ear and empowering others to shine and coaching them to success.

In terms of her own management, Kate-Lily has excellent working relationship with peers and senior management. Although Kate-Lily draws inspiration from her current Director who instils confidence in her daily work, she has been affected by instances where she has experienced low self-esteem that affected her mental health and performance due to poor management and lack of appropriate support.

However, such situations have strengthened her character, making her resolve to support and help others at all times and drive change in the conversations around Mental Health, Wellbeing, and Diversity.