Jenny Brown
Chair, Longhurst Group

Jenny is a governance and EDI specialist working both as a governance consultant and as a learning and development facilitator focussing on EDI and behaviours. She is passionate about bringing these two worlds together to create better organisations who can have a greater impact on more people. Jenny has worked on and with boards for many years and is currently Chair at Longhurst Group.

Her work includes the Social Housing sector through her part time role as a Governance Director at Altair and with a broad range of national and multinational organisations through associate roles elsewhere. She is a Coach, Coach Supervisor and Mentor to a wide range of people including Executives, Non-Executives all the way through to those at the beginnings of their careers. Jenny led on Altair’s input into the NHF Chair’s Challenge and Inclusive recruitment guide and is currently in discussion on an update.

Tina Barnard
Chief Executive, Watford Community Housing

Tina has been Chief Executive of Watford Community Housing since its formation in 2007. She is a qualified accountant who has been in the housing sector for over 30 years, working as a Finance Director in three housing organisations – CHP, Worthing Homes and New Era – and as a financial analyst at the Housing Corporation. As part of Watford Community Housing’s wider Group activities, Tina serves on the Clarendon Living Board and as a Clarendon Living representative to our Hart Homes joint venture with Watford Borough Council. She is also Chair of both our Three Rivers Homes and Hertsmere Living Ltd joint venture companies with key local authority partners, and is co-founder of the Greener Herts partnership, which is working to make Hertfordshire’s homes more sustainable. Tina has been a Non-Executive Director for a number of housing and charitable organisations, and is currently the Interim Chair of Parasol Homes.

Darren Baxter
Principal Policy Advisor, Housing and Land, Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Darren leads is a Principal Policy Advisor at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, where he leads the organisations programme of work on housing and land. Prior to joining JRF, Darren worked on housing, UK poverty and environmental policy at a leading progressive think-tank. Darren has also worked in academic research and holds a PhD in social policy from the University of York.

Richard Blakeway
Housing Ombudsman

Richard was appointed as Housing Ombudsman from 1 September 2019. He has extensive experience in the housing sector, with previous roles including Deputy Mayor of London for Housing, chair of the Homes for London board, and a non-executive director of Homes England. During his eight years at the Greater London Authority, Richard was responsible for housing investment and land regeneration programmes. He also led the creation of the first team at City Hall to address rough sleeping, commissioning around £10 million of services each year, as well as the first Social Impact Bond on homelessness.

Richard is a former board member of the Chartered Institute of Housing and has been an election observer in Somaliland and the Ukraine. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and sits on the Administrative Justice Council. Richard also chairs the Ombudsman Association and is a board member of the British Library.

Laurie Brown
Director – Information Security, Flagship Group

Lee Cartwright
Partner, Beever and Struthers

Lee is an Audit Partner at Beever in Struthers, working predominantly within the social housing and wider not-for-profit sector, covering external and internal audit, risk management, regulatory compliance, and board development and training. With his experience working across a broad spectrum of service lines, Lee has great knowledge and understanding of his clients and can help them navigate the challenges they face. Lee is no stranger to speaking at conferences or being featured in reports and reviews. Lee works with social housing providers and charities of all shapes and sizes. He is committed to helping his team and his clients to achieve better, and also supports local communities through volunteering roles with a number of small charitable organisations.

Anne Chapman
Assistant Director – Governance and Compliance, Golding Group

Having extensive governance, strategic and legal experience, Anne is the corporate lead for governance and compliance matters and the Company Secretary for housing association, Golding Homes. Anne has held many non-executive board positions and is currently the Vice Chair of Eldon Housing Association, an independent member of the Audit and Risk Committee at the Chartered Institute of Housing and a trustee of the homelessness charity, Porchlight.

Jon Cocker
Chief Information Officer, Platform Housing Group

Jon Cocker is Chief Information Officer for Platform Housing Group. He has 20 years’ experience in technology roles ranging from business telecommunications, local government and contact centre operations. He has an MBA and is passionate about driving efficiency and effectiveness though digital transformation and innovation in housing.

Steve Coffey
Group Chief Executive, Torus

Steve is a passionate advocate for high-quality and affordable housing, and is responsible for Torus’ overall strategic direction, performance and development. Prior to joining Torus, he led Liverpool Mutual Homes for 10 years as Chief Executive. Steve’s career began in civil engineering prior to moving into the housing sector. He also worked for several local authorities prior to taking up a senior housing role in the west midlands at the start of the new millennium before returning to the Liverpool City Region some years later. Steve has considerable experience operating at boardroom level, in both executive and non-executive roles, and is an active member of bodies including the CBI North West Regional Council and the National Housing Federation. In 2022, he was appointed as Chair of Homes for the North. His work experience has also nurtured a keen personal interest in health matters, environmental issues and the low carbon agenda. Addressing green skills, employment, the retrofit challenge and volatile energy costs as an integrated issue is a key element of Steve’s vision.

Stewart Davison
Non-Executive Director Elim and Taff Housing, founder Elehan Consulting

Stewart has had a diverse career including nearly 10 years in the British Army. Stewart has worked in the field of Social Housing and Proptech for over 25 years and is passionate about how technology can be a force for positive change, having worked in both front line social housing and for technology companies he strives to inform, educate and implement new technologies to improve the lives of tenants and residents across the UK.

Kate Dodsworth
Chief of Regulatory Engagement, Regulator of Social Housing

Kate started her housing career in homelessness before moving to the National Housing Federation where she was Assistant Director covering London the South East and East of England. She moved to Amicus Horizon in 2013, sitting on the Executive team for five years during which it became Optivo. Kate took on the role of Chief Executive at Gateway Housing Association in 2018. She is also one of the founding members of Leadership 2025, which was set up to address diversity gaps in housing leadership, and is a trustee of the charity that is taking this work forward.

Karen Doran
Director of Regulatory Engagement, 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.

Kathryn Fox-Rogers
Managing Director, Johnnie Johnson Housing

Kathryn has worked in social housing for 20 years, designing housing and asset management services with their associated strategies, delivering cost savings and increasing customer satisfaction. Part of her role has led to be part of the newly formed Greater Manchester Housing taskforce for Decarbonisation. It is certainly going to be a fascinating time as we look to retrofit green technology into our homes balancing the need for change and ensuring ‘green’ is affordable for residents – what a challenge!

Elizabeth Froude
Chief Executive, Platform Housing Group

Elizabeth is Group Chief Executive for Platform Housing Group, which have 47,000 homes coast to coast across the Midlands.

Elizabeth came into the sector 16 years ago when she joined Radian to work on their formation merger and has since worked across the South Coast , Home Counties, central London where she spent eight years working for Notting Hill Genesis.

Prior to that she worked for various listed plc companies in varying sectors from retail and film to finance and leisure, across the UK, Europe and USA. Usually in change, process improvement or merger roles with an operational efficiency focus.

Larry Gold
CEO, SYHA

Larry joined South Yorkshire Housing Association as CEO in 2023, bringing experience of working in the private sector, local and central government, and over 20 years in the housing sector. He’s held leadership roles at the Prime Focus Regeneration Group, Walsall Housing Group, and Trafford Housing Trust where he was brought in to set the company up in 2004. Larry has a strong strategic focus and operational expertise leading across finance, governance, development, and operational business divisions.

Aly Heald
Director of Partnerships, L&Q

Alyson has worked in the Social Housing sector for almost 20 years, originally securing the role of Anti-Social Behaviour Officer in 2004 and continuing to manage a wide cross section of teams at a Director, Head of Service and Management level, transforming delivery and building productive partnerships with internal and external stakeholders.

As Partnership Director for L&Q, Alyson is focused on developing strong strategic relationships with a wide cross section of stakeholders both within and outside the sector, presenting at a range of events across the country and working to effectively influence local and national policy through the identification of emerging trends and future opportunities for the benefit of residents and communities in the North West.

Frances Herity
Head of Risk and Assurance, The Guinness Partnership

Frances is the Director of Risk and Assurance at the Guinness Partnership with responsibility for delivering the risk and assurance framework, and supporting controls compliance activity, and leading the data assurance team. Prior to joining Guinness, Frances worked for KPMG in the public sector audit and assurance team, as well at other housing associations and ALMOs where she started her career as a Housing Officer.

Ian Howard
Group Risk and Audit Chair, Inclusion Group

Ian is a Non Executive Director of Inclusion Housing CIC and Chair of the Group Risk and Audit Committee. He has over 25 years in senior risk management leadership roles in global financial and professional services organisations. Ian now leads a successful nationwide consulting practice helping businesses, charities and CICs implement successful strategies, board level risk management and governance capabilities.

Chris Jones
Executive Director, EMH

Chris joined emh group in 2018, and has over 20 years’ experience of multi-tenure, residential development in the public and private sectors. Chris manages the group’s Strategic Partnership with Homes England, through which he aims to almost double the number of new homes built over the next five years. He is a lead member of the Quantum Development partnership and strong campaigner for greater housing investment in the East Midlands.

Simon Lunt
Head of Member Development, Building Engineering Services Association

Simon’s career path has spanned a unique blend of industries ranging from the specification and supply of safety critical systems for hostile environments such as submarines and the international space centre through to airfield equipment and air handling unit manufacturing. But two threads have remained throughout – that of competence and compliance.

In his role as Head of Member Development at the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) Simon is focused on working with contractors, manufacturers, clients, and partners including housing associations to ensure a better, safer, and more sustainable built environment across the UK.

Fiona MacGregor
Chief Executive, Regulator of Social Housing

Fiona became Chief Executive of the standalone Regulator of Social Housing in October 2018 having been Director of Regulation at the Homes and Communities Agency from November 2015. The Regulator is responsible for the regulation of registered social housing providers. Previously, as Director of Programmes, she was responsible for HCA’s Affordable Housing and Help to Buy programmes. Fiona has over 25 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.

Mark Mayler
Group Finance Director, Selwood Housing

Mark has worked as a senior finance professional for several private sector and PLCs such as BT, RAC and Lloyds bank. He has been Group finance director for Selwood housing for over 3 years leading the finance and IT teams. He is particularly interested in how technology can improve performance and has recently led the development of Selwood’s first data strategy.

Bernadette Middleton
Climate Risk Engineer, Zurich Insurance

Bernadette is a Climate Resilience Specialist at Zurich Resilience Solutions (ZRS), supporting customers in improving their physical and organizational resilience to current natural hazards and future climate change. Her primary focus is assisting companies in understanding the climate related hazards which can impact their assets, operations and people and advising on physical and organizational resilience strategies.

Prior to joining ZRS, Bernadette has worked as a sustainability consultant in the built environment sector for over 10 years. This work has focused on developing and implementing sustainability, waste reduction and decarbonization strategies, climate risk assessments, and net-zero-carbon roadmaps for large-scale building and infrastructure projects located across the UK and North America.

Rosie Nightingale
Head of Internal Audit, Bromford

Rosie joined Bromford Housing Group as Head of Internal Audit in May 2023, setting up a new independent internal audit function. Rosie's team are committed to delivering foresight and insight through high quality and professional internal audit. She joined Bromford from PwC where she worked with a range of clients in housing, government, healthcare, higher education and manufacturing within co-sourced and outsourced models of internal audit and as a risk management specialist.

Her career began in policy and assurance within international development for central government. Rosie has previously held roles as a Director on the Council for the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors and set up the Aspire Network for internal auditors early in their career.

Rhys Moore
Executive Director of Public Impact, National Housing Federation

Rhys started with the NHF in October 2018, as Executive Director of Public Impact. Rhys oversees our policy, external affairs and communications work. Previously he was Director of the Living Wage Foundation where he worked with government, business and civil society to build a national movement of responsible employers. Before that, he helped to establish the London Community Foundation, which supports grassroots community groups in the capital. Rhys is a board member of the Carers Trust.

David Pearce
Group Director of Management Services, Together Housing

Vicky Pryce
Chief Economic Adviser, Centre for Economics and Business Research

Vicky Pryce is Chief Economic Adviser at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) and a Visiting Professor at BCU and King’s College, London. She was previously Director General for Economics at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service.

Puneet Rajput
Director for Governance and Regulation, Southern Housing

Puneet helps to support good governance, regulation and compliance across Southern Housing as well as great leadership as a member of Southern’s Leadership Team.

Guy Stenson
Chief Executive, Gloucester City Homes

Guy joined Gloucester City Homes as Chief Executive in March 2022 from Stonewater where he'd held a number of roles, most recently Director of Housing Operations. Guy’s career has spanned leadership roles in both the statutory and not-for-profit sector, often in roles working across the traditional boundaries of housing, health and social care and is passionate about the role housing associations can play working alongside citizens, partner agencies, as well the wider community, to improve quality of life, aspiration and opportunity for all, ensuring that everybody, regardless of their circumstances has a place where they feel safe and can be proud to call home.

Guy is currently a Board Member of both Orbit Housing Association and Newport City Homes, he is Chair of Audit & Risk Committee at Newport City Homes.

Craig Thornton
Risk and Assurance Director, Sovereign

Craig has been in the social housing sector since joining Sovereign as its Director of Audit and Risk in 2020. He subsequently also joined the Board of Grand Union in 2021. Prior to that he spent the majority of his career in the telecoms sector. He has specialised in internal control disciplines for the past ten years, with senior roles in this field at Vodafone and as an independent consultant. He’s a chartered accountant with a broad range of experience in finance, operations and programme management. Craig was drawn to social housing by his strong sense of social justice and sees the sector playing a fundamental role in eradicating inequality.

Nicolien Van Zwieten
Climate Resilience Specialist, Zurich Resilience Solutions (ZRS)

Nicolien is a Climate Resilience Risk Specialist at Zurich Resilience Solutions (ZRS). Her primary role is to support organisations understand the impact climate related hazards will have on their assets, operations and workforce. Nicolien has a background in geology, completing her MSc in Structural Geology and Geophysics at University of Leeds and BSc at Swansea University. During her studies she had a particular interest in natural hazards, specifically mitigation strategies.​ Since graduating she has developed her knowledge on climate change, in particular specialising in urban heat. She has worked across various industries helping clients in the conveyancing and insurance market understand climate change risks. Previous to joining the UK ZRS climate team she worked as a GIS Analyst, identifying biodiversity and carbon capture projects in the UK.

Ceri Victory-Rowe
Director, Campbell Tickell

Ceri is a consultant specialising in governance and regulation in the social housing sector across the UK. She regularly provides advice to the Boards and Executive Teams of registered providers on a range of matters including regulatory compliance and recovery following regulatory compliance challenges.

Bethany Weaver
Deputy Company Secretary, Aspire Housing

Beth is Deputy Company Secretary at Aspire Housing, a housing provider in Newcastle-under-Lyme with circa 8,500 properties. Beth started her career in housing working at a homeless charity managing the voids and occupancy for circa 100 bed spaces of supported accommodation across shared housing, private fostering placements and ex-offenders hostels. Beth carried out assessments of suitability, risk and mitigations for all potential residents and provided specialised support to ex-offenders, assisting them with their housing needs once their custodial sentence was completed. This provided Beth with a deep insight into the important role that social housing can play in that context and more broadly.

After a period managing her own franchise of a national health and wellbeing organisation and project managing a team delivering live health and wellbeing shows nationally, Beth returned to social housing in 2020. As part of her current role, Beth helps to support governance, legal and regulatory compliance, Business Continuity, risk management, data protection, as well as support to the Board and Committees. Beth is passionate about EDI and chairs Aspire’s EDI forum.