Waqar Ahmed
Group Finance Director, L&Q

Waqar has worked for L&Q Housing Group for 20 years and was appointed Group Finance Director in 2008. He has been in the Social Housing Sector for over 25 years.

Waqar main priorities has been to develop a management culture across the entire L&Q Group that pursues our social objectives with a commercial approach to optimise business efficiencies. In 2008, as Group Finance Director his immediate priorities included simplifying the group structure and developing a new financial model and investment strategy that ensures the Group can maximise capacity for growth and retain the confidence of key investment stakeholders. Waqar has supported the Group in taking on commercial activities and vertical integration in both operational and Development functions to generate significant financial strength. This combined with some £3 billion refinancing of our loan book with simple and flexible covenants sets the platform for the L&Q Group to build a 100k development pipeline over the next 10 years.

Waqar has supported he Group's initiative to work in partnership with House builders and other Housing Associations unlocking additional capacity to build more homes. The recent partnership with Trafford Housing Trust is an example of how two housing associations can work in partnership in a mutually beneficial way and boost the supply of new homes.

Barbara Anderson
Chair - Audit and Risk Committee, Sovereign

Paul Bayly
Governance and Compliance Manager, National Housing Federation

Paul is the Governance and Compliance Manager for the Federation. He looks after the Federation’s internal risk and assurance processes and is responsible for advising members on governance matters. Paul also assists organisations looking to adopt the Federation’s Model Rules for Registered Societies.

Alix Bedford
Risk Consultant, Zurich Insurance

Alix Bedford is a strategic risk professional with over 15 years’ experience working both with and within the public sector initially as a Strategic Risk Consultant with Zurich Municipal. Alix's current focus is supporting the delivery of strategic risk management solutions across Zurich Municipal segments through the provision of risk insight, training and coaching. Prior to this Alix spent 7 years as the lead officer for risk and performance management at Swindon Borough Council, and has experience in a variety of fields including policy development, corporate planning, performance management, programme and project management and business resilience. Alix is a member of the Institute of Risk Management and was their Certificate qualification student of the year for 2016.

Stephen Bennett
Chair of Audit and Risk Committee, Castles & Coasts Housing Association

Stephen has a wealth of experience in the judiciary, as well as in assessing public services. Stephen’s background in assessing service standards, and in regulation, is very useful in his role on the Board and as Chair of Audit & Risk Committee.

Stephen works with the UK Government’s Accreditation Agency on international standards covering Quality Management Systems and Product Certification. He also works nationally in the development of national trauma and emergency services and with the Medical Royal Colleges developing and implementing post graduate education and examination activities for surgeons and emergency physicians.

Caspar Berry
Former professional poker player

After starring in Byker Grove and studying Economics and Anthropology at Cambridge, Caspar began his adult career a screenwriter. Then at the age of 25 he made a life-changing decision and became a professional poker player in Las Vegas.

Caspar has long since retired from poker, but he retains many of the lessons learned and applies them directly to business. He identifies risk as the single most important though least understood factor in turning potentially innovative managers into dynamic leaders. As testament to this, Bill Gates claims to have discovered everything he knows about business from the poker he played at college.

After the the financial crisis (caused in large part by the failure to manage risk), Caspar argues that the priority is not to avoid risk altogether, but to better understand and calculate it. Whether you are leading a team, making savings, planning budgets or negotiating with suppliers and customers, risk plays a central role in your life; yet when challenged, few can define the difference between a calculated risk and a reckless gamble. He also reflects on the risk of telling the truth at work, as well as recognising the truth and how to create a more honest environment.

In his workshops Caspar uses game playing to provide practical insights into risk, uncertainty and the science of decision-making. Offering tools (not rules), he demonstrates the difference between a calculated risk and a gamble, how to balance short and long-term goals and how to make the most of opportunities. Participants discover that when given enough information and the ability to measure probability, risk-embracing behaviour pays substantial dividends.

Away from the serious side of risk, Caspar also hosts poker schools, taking even beginners through the steps of flushes and full houses and getting participants to play in a Texas Hold ‘Em competition.

Guy Biggin
Partner, Audit, Crowe

Sarah Brown
Director - Public Sector Audit, KPMG

John Bryant
Policy Leader, National Housing Federation

John Butler
Finance Policy Leader, National Housing Federation

John Butler is the Finance Policy Leader at the National Housing Federation. Having preciously spent three and a half years at PriceWaterhouse Coopers John worked for a marketing company for a year before joining the Federation

Bill Byfield
Director, Public Sector, Savills

Anna Clarke
Director, Economic Consulting, RSM

Anna Clarke is an Associate Director at RSM Economic Consulting with over 15 years’ experience of managing research in the fields of housing and social policy. Before joining RSM in 2018, Anna was a Senior Research Associate at the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research in Cambridge University. She has led a wide variety evaluations, economic appraisals and policy analysis. Current projects include an evaluation of the Voluntary Right to Buy for the Ministry of Housing and NHF, analysis of keyworker housing needs and options in the London borough of Brent and a review of the social housing allocation scheme for Birmingham City Council. She has also recently completed work for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive on the impact of Brexit on the Northern Ireland Housing Market.

Helen Collins
Head of Housing Consultancy, Savills

Helen is an accomplished senior executive and housing professional with over 25 years’ experience in the social housing sector. She brings a wealth of experience of housing consultancy and specialises in strategies for growth, diversification, asset management, stock rationalisation, merger and partnerships brokerage and delivery.

Helen joined Savills from Bromford Group where she spent six years as Executive Director for Strategy and Development during a phase of significant organic and inorganic growth. Prior to Bromford Helen worked for a leading national housing consultancy where she delivered a range of strategic housing consultancy.

Helen is a Fellow and former President of the Chartered Institute of Housing and a professional member of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.

Matt Cooney
Chief Operating Officer, PA Housing

Matt Cooney joined the former Asra Housing in 2010. He was appointed Chief Operating Officer for PA Housing in 2017, and is responsible for all operational services, including responsibility for leading the transformation and process change in order to deliver improved services to meet the needs of customers. Matt has over 20 years’ experience as a customer services leader across a number of organisations where he was responsible for operations, developing customer strategies and delivering transformational change. Matt is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing (FCIH) and a Board Member of Leicester YMCA.

Jonathon Corris
Partner, Real Estate and Projects, Devonshires

Arturo Dell
Director of Technology and Innovation, HouseMark

Arturo is responsible for leading on product development, innovation, Big Data and the Internet of Things. He is widely known in the UK public sector as a thought leader and practition​er on these issues. He joined HouseMark in 2015 and was previously the Head of Business Intelligence at the London Borough of Camden​​.

Karen Doran
Assistant Director, Investigation & Enforcement, Regulator of Social Housing

Karen is part of the senior leadership team at the Social Housing Regulator.

Prior to joining the regulator at the end of 2013, Karen worked at CIH and for the Council of Mortgage Lenders leading work on affordable housing lending as chair to the panel of social housing lenders. With previous experience in housing in a LA and HA context as well as in central and regional government in policy and operational roles, Karen has a range of perspectives and insight into the housing sector.

Karen Featherstone
Director of Assurance Group Business Assurance, Places for People

Prior to joining Places for People, Karen was the Assistant Director, Governance & Enabling Services at Gentoo Group. She qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte in 2001 and has worked in housing internal audit since 2002. She was a Board member of Derwentside Homes from 2005 to 2010, becoming Chair of the Audit Committee, then Chair of the Board.

Gareth Francis
Director of Treasury and Corporate Finance, Clarion Housing Group

Gareth is responsible for arranging the group’s funding and managing the associated risks. A chartered corporate treasurer, he was previously Deputy Treasurer at THFC during operation of the Government Guarantee scheme, Head of Treasury and Head of Corporate Finance at Affinity Sutton and has held various roles at FCE Bank.

Justin Freeman
Director of Income Maximisation, ForHousing

Justin heads up income management at ForHousing. His focus is to make sure that people get the support that is right for them – at the right time. He works with partners to tackle issues around poverty, welfare changes and sustaining tenancies to help create opportunities – improving lives. With a wealth of over 25 years experience in housing, Justin is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute, holding degrees in both law and housing. He chairs the Federation’s Welfare Reform Member Group; North West Housing Management, Welfare Reform Regional Interest Group; and HQN’s Income Management Excellence Groups across northern England.

Gemma Glass
Head of Financial Inclusion Housing Services, Optivo

Lee Glover
Associate Director, Haines Watts

Rina Goldenburg Lynch
Founder and Chief Executive, Voice at the Table

Rina was a lawyer for 20 years in Washington and London before she set up Voice At The Table, a gender diversity and inclusion consultancy. Since 2014, the consultancy has helped numerous organisations - large and small - develop inclusive teams and leaders and become more appreciative of women’s authentic contributions.

Marc Hadley-Smith
Partner, RSM UK

Marc leads the Microsoft practice within technology and management consulting. He has over 15 years’ experience in business applications and consulting. His experience with digital transformation has helped small, medium and enterprise organisations adopt Microsoft technologies throughout the UK and globally.

Starting out in the business applications space 15 years ago, Marc’s focus was centred on user adoption and customer success in deployments of core finance, ERP and CRM systems across a wide range of industries. This was an ideal grounding for assisting small and agile as well as complex multi national customers at various stages in their digital transformation journey. Most recently as Chief Technology Officer of a premier Microsoft Dynamics partner, Marc’s innovative ideas successfully contributed to organisational growth and smooth deployment of the full Microsoft application stack.

Jill Haley
Chief Executive, Byker Community Trust

Appointed as Chief Executive in March 2012 and before the formation of the organisation in July 2012. Jill is a Fellow Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) and has a diverse breadth of housing experience in both public and private sectors, initially starting her career in housing in 1981.

Jill is responsible to the BCT Board for strategy, governance, management and performance, including delivery of the stock transfer promises to tenants, whilst also making sure that the business meets the needs of customers through effective leadership and performance management.

Carolyn Halpin
Chair of Alarm Housing Group, Senior Assurance Manager of Thirteen Housing Group

A risk management professional since 1996, I have led in developing risk management as a profession with Alarm, the Cabinet Office, the DfE and international risk management organisations.

A move to the Housing Sector in 2005, allowed the development of risk management into an integral part of the assurance and governance of arrangements including the broader spectrum of assurance and governance requirements. A former Chair and Board member of Alarm, I am the Chair of the Alarm Housing Group.

Angela Holden
Senior Adviser, Investigation and Enforcement, Regulator of Social Housing

Angela is a senior regulator at the Regulator of Social Housing. She is responsible for managing the Regulator’s consumer regulation function, assessing and investigating referrals which indicate a breach of the regulatory standards. Angela is also responsible for managing non-compliant casework – both for breaches of the consumer standards and where there have been significant failures in a registered provider’s governance. Prior to this, Angela worked at the Parliamentary Ombudsman, investigating complaints about public bodies, and at the Insolvency Service, investigating cases of organisations which were trading contrary to the public interest.

Maureen Hopcroft
Chair, Women's Pioneer

Maureen has 30 years’ ICT experience in the private, public and third sectors. She is now an independent programme management and ICT consultant offering services across the public and third sector.

Steve Jarrett
Managing Consultant, RSM UK

Steve is an experienced consultant, specialising in ensuring identified benefits are achieved. He has recently taken learning from the huge benefits realisation programme work that RSM are doing with the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency and translated it into what is proving to be a really useful model for the Social Housing Sector. Steve, being a qualified project manager (P3M3 Lead Assessor qualified), understands the complexity of change and how important a healthy organisation is to achieving results – he has successfully applied his knowledge on a number of Social Housing related initiatives.

Steve, having supporting and advised large and small delivery programmes across Europe, has a realistic and achievable approach to turning corporate vision into tangible and more importantly – measurable results.

Paul Johnson
Director, Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)

Ros Kerslake OBE
Chief Executive, The National Lottery Heritage Fund

Jeff Laidler
Partner, Gibbs Laidler

Rhys Lewis
Head of Housing Market Indices, Office for National Statistics

Robyn Llewellyn
Chair of Audit and Risk Committee, Orwell Housing Association

Fiona MacGregor
Executive Director of Regulation, Social Housing Regulator

Fiona was appointed director of the HCA in 2015 and is responsible for the regulation of social housing providers. Prior to this, as director of programmes, she was responsible for the HCA's affordable housing and help to buy programmes. Fiona has over 20 years' housing experience, covering development investment, programme delivery and policy development. She has worked at the HCA since it launched in 2008, before which she was deputy director of investment at the Housing Corporation, and prior to that, head of development at London & Quadrant.

Jacqui McKinlay
Chief Executive, Centre for Public Scrutiny

Jacqui McKinlay is chief executive of the Centre for Public Scrutiny, a national charity dedicated to promoting and supporting excellence in governance and scrutiny. Jacqui oversees CfPS’ work with a wide range of sectors including local government, national government, health and social care, education, the private sector and housing. She has a wealth of leadership and governance experience from operating at board level for over fifteen years. Prior to CfPS, Jacqui was director of strategy and customer services at Staffordshire County Council and has worked in health, sport and the Civil Service.

Dr Mairi McLean
Chairwoman, Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust

Mairi has been an NHS non-executive director since 2014. In December 2018 Mairi was successfully appointed as Chairwoman of the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust. Mairi has worked in public and private sector services for 30 years. She has a background in social work, psychology and leadership and has held senior positions in local government. She is a former local government council Chief Executive Officer. Mairi also works as a practitioner ‘to keep close to reality’. Mairi founded her own consultancy business 10 years ago which provides leadership and executive coaching, strategic planning and governance work, with a focus on inclusion. She has chaired three ministerial task forces, and is passionate about brilliant leadership/followership and great governance. Mairi believes Boards make great decisions when they know staff and patient views. She also holds a number of other local and national advisory and visiting lecturer positions.

Henrietta Podd
Director, JCRA

Henrietta started a Housing Association advisory team with Adrian Bell in 2009 and they moved the team to JCRA in April 2016. She has worked in the bond markets for 30 years, largely in the wholesale bond markets and covering most industry sectors. In 1992 Henrietta joined Hambros to concentrate on bond issuance for infrastructure and increasingly advised on the UK’s PFI/PPP programme. Then at RBC she headed an award-winning bond team and was responsible for the capital markets relationships with housing associations, also leading the debut issue for THFC No.2.

Keith Petty
Director of Risk and Insurance, L&Q

Adele Rae
Tenant, Leeds and Yorkshire Housing Association

Sue Ramsden
Policy Leader, National Housing Federation

Diane Raphael
Head of Quality Assurance, Group Data Protection Officer, Longhurst Group

Senior Representative
National Cyber Security Centre

Alan Ross
Senior Strategic Risk Management Consultant, Zurich Municipal

Alan has an undergraduate honours degree in risk management and has worked for Zurich for over ten years.

With previous experience working within blue chip companies, the financial service industry and the third sector, Alan is also a trained facilitator, trainer and PRINCE II practitioner.

Since joining Zurich, Alan has delivered a range of risk and resilience consultancy services for Zurich’s customers, both in the private and public sector. This includes designing and implementing enterprise risk management and business continuity frameworks.

Liz Skelton
Director of Health and Safety, The Guinness Partnership

Mike Shepherd
Director of New Business and Development, VIVID

Mike’s responsible for delivery of our development projects, sales and new business. He oversees the delivery of our new build development programme, which includes numerous major regeneration programmes and a number of innovative joint venture initiatives, and which over the next 10 years looks set to deliver around 12,000 new homes. A Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing, Mike initially worked in housing management then moved into development where he’s worked for the last 15 years.

Louise Thompson
Head of Business Services, Tpas

Becky Tucker
Head of Risk and Compliance, Sovereign

Keith Ward
Partner, Head of Social Impact Advisory, RSM

Keith is a qualified chartered accountant and prior to joining RSM spent six years at a ‘Big
4’ firm specialising in the not for profit sector. He has a large portfolio of social housing
clients ranging from large housing associations with 22,000 units to smaller associations
with 2,000 units and a number of commercial, construction, retail and care provider clients.
Keith is a regular presenter and contributor for social housing conferences and
publications, including for The National Housing Federation. He recently presented and
Chaired sessions at their Finance Conference in March 2019.

Keith regularly sits on the judging panel for the NHF’s Housing Awards.

Catherine Weller
Director of Corporate Operations, Pobl Group