Sandy Munroe
This October, in honour of Black History Month, we’re celebrating 31 Black professionals in property. Today we’re celebrating Sandy Munroe.
Sandy is the Head of Real Estate at Hawkins Hatton Corporate Lawyers. dealing with real estate finance and all aspects of commercial property for private clients. It took a long time to achieve partnership, requiring resilience and hard work, especially as a woman and person of colour. Times are slowly changing with more firms supporting underrepresented groups to progress. While Sandy enjoys reading for pleasure, "The Chimp Paradox" stands out as a particularly helpful read.
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (ED&I) in law has always been important to Sandy. A full-time ED&I role would be the 'icing on the cake.' Sandy got into the property industry by chance, originally wanting to be a paediatrician but was suggested a career in law due to disliking applied maths. Her first job was as a legal executive in the Property Department at Eversheds.
With over 35 years of commercial property experience in the public and private sectors, Sandy's role involves steering complex property transactions and development projects, from acquiring shopping centres for redevelopment to managing residential transformations of former industrial estates. Experience includes acting for local authorities and NHS Trusts, managing extensive property portfolios for registered providers, and significant undertakings such as the conditional sale with partial leaseback of a former industrial site and spearheading the acquisition and development of new educational facilities.
As a proactive senior leader, Sandy is committed to nurturing a high-performing team, delivering exceptional client service, and maintaining robust financial management. Championing digital innovations like AI in property reporting and digital signing processes, she enhances efficiency and accuracy. She is deeply passionate about ED&I, serving as the ED&I Chairperson at previous firms, participating in Birmingham Law Society’s REACH group, and supporting Birmingham Black Lawyers. Sandy promotes diversity in the legal profession through aspiration events at schools and colleges.
At Hawkins Hatton, Sandy's goal is to drive innovation and excellence within the real estate practice while fostering an environment where diversity is celebrated and client expectations are exceeded. Her expertise includes joint venture acquisitions, property aspects of projects for local authorities, sales and purchases for private corporate clients, landlord and tenant matters, land acquisitions and site set-ups for residential developers, acquisitions and refinancing for registered providers. Sandy is Head of Real Estate at Hawkins Hatton acting for institutional and other lenders in real estate finance as well as general commercial conveyancing for a range of commercial clients.
