Kate Henderson
Chief Executive, National Housing Federation

Kate Henderson is Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation (NHF), the voice of housing associations in England. Kate is passionate about tackling the housing crisis, inequality and climate change. She is a member of several government panels including the Rough Sleeping Advisory Panel and the Social Housing White Paper Expert Challenge Panel. Kate become a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2021. Prior to joining the NHF in 2018, Kate was Chief Executive of the Town and Country Planning Association.

Ruhena Ahmed
Deputy Director for the Social Housing Quality Programme, Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities

Ruhena Ahmed is the Deputy Director for Social Housing Quality and Residents within the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Her responsibilities include the physical decency of social housing, the quality of social housing services, tenants voice, and redress. Her division contributes to the department’s housing mission, and the commitment to reduce non-decency of housing by 50% by 2030. She has previously worked as a Senior Civil Servant at the Department for Work and Pensions, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Jo Allen
Head of Member Relations, National Housing Federation

Jo has worked at the NHF since 2015. Prior to joining the NHF, she worked in policy and public affairs roles in local government, the banking sector and the British Embassy in Madrid.

Roseann Ayton
Resident Board Member, Hexagon

Roseann has worked in the Social Housing sector for 30 years during which time she has managed Local Government Business Units including Homelessness and Housing Needs services. Roseann has written a range of Corporate Strategies including Housing and Inclusive Growth. Roseann also worked as the LGA Policy Advisor supporting the 2nd stage of GovUK Syrian Refugee Resettlement Programme. Roseann is a freelance Housing Trainer specialising in : Complaint Handling , 'Case notes and Record Keeping' and 'Professional Boundaries' respectively. Roseann has designed and delivered her 'laugh out loud' Record Keeping workshops to over 250 frontline housing staff to date. Roseann is a certified Business Performance Coach and Personal Development Coach and has delivered leadership coaching to Local Government Heads of Service in support of wide scale transformation programmes. Roseann also designed the unprecedented Complaint Handling Guidance for all Train Operating Companies on behalf of the UK Office for Rail and Road.

Samia Badani
CEO and Founder, The SPACE Hub

With over 15 years of experience in the public and social sectors, Samia Badani a strategic leader and influencer who drives social change and wellbeing through effective operations, policy, and advocacy. As the CEO and Co-Founder of The SPACE Health & Wellbeing Hub, I oversee delivering high-quality services to clients across various sectors, ensuring their health and wellbeing needs are met and exceeded. Samia Badani was formerly a Commissioner on post Grenfell Shelter Commission and she has developed successful cross-agencies partnerships which led to the creation of community hubs using an innovative and responsive model of service delivery.

Peter Baffoe
Resident Board Member, Peabody

With a background firmly rooted in the community, Peter has been a resident member of the Peabody Board since May 2018.

He currently works as a Faith and Community Development Officer for the Methodist South London Mission. In his role as a school governor, Peter acts as the link governor for disadvantaged pupils.

Andrea Baker
Director of Housing and Corporate Services, Poplar Harca

Andrea has worked in housing for 30 years with Southwark and Tower Hamlets Councils, Swan Housing Group and Richmond Housing Partnership. She is a Group Board Member of MHS Homes, and Chair of Heart of Medway Housing Association.

Andrea is a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Chartered Management Institute and Institute of Directors.

Michelle Baker
Board Member and Chair of the Customer Influence Committee, Eastlight Community Homes

Jo Barrett
Executive Director of Operations, Thrive Homes

Jo joined Thrive Homes in June 2008, previously having worked at Stevenage Borough Council as their Director of Technical Services and was involved in the setting up of Stevenage Homes in 2006. This was an Arms Length Management Organisation responsible for the management of the Council's housing stock.

With a career spanning over 30 years in housing, Jo has extensive experience of strategic asset management, day-to-day repairs and maintenance, and refining customer experience. Jo has developed Thrive’s Active Asset Management Strategy, bringing together asset, finance and development to ensure investment in homes maintains quality, and improves energy efficiency whilst achieving value for money.

This experience has helped Jo deliver acquisitions and contracts to manage on behalf of others whilst managing Thrive Places – homes for market rent.

Jo obtained a BSc in Building Surveying in 1994 and qualified as a Chartered Building Surveyor in 1995. She is a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and chairs the National Housing Federation's Quality of Existing Homes Group.

Pam Bhamra
Director of Resident Services, Origin Housing Housing Association

Pam joined Origin in 2022. She has a considerable track record in delivering housing and resident services at director level with a focus on quality services and resident engagement. Pam is a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing.

Nicole Bickerdyke
Policy Advisor for Social Housing Redress, Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities

Nicole is a policy advisor in the social housing redress team at DLUHC.

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.

Jenny Brown
Chair, Longhurst

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.

Catherine Cole
Director of Housing and Communities, Community Housing

We welcomed Catherine Cole as our new Director of Housing and Communities on 7 February 2022. She has extensive experience at a senior level in the housing sector, having worked for a range of different organisations including Bournville Village Trust, Platform Housing, Fortis Living and Citizen.

Catherine is responsible for housing services, care and support, amica 24/Technology Enabled Care Services, customer experience and engagement services.

Jonathan Cowie
Chief Executive, Plymouth Community Homes

Jonathan joined PCH as Chief Executive in September 2023, and is responsible for providing strategic and operational leadership of the organisation, working with the Board and Executive Management Team.

Before moving to Devon, Jonathan worked as Chief Operating Officer for Vivid Housing in Portsmouth, and was previously the Chief Executive of City West Homes in London and Chief Operating Officer for Sovereign Housing in Newbury. Jonathan’s earlier career included senior management roles in the telecommunications and customer service sectors, and championing the voice of the customer remains a key focus today, as well as ensuring PCH delivers excellent services for residents and works to improve lives within the communities it serves. Alongside his role as CEO at PCH, Jonathan serves as a Non-Executive Director for Magna Housing in Dorset and a Non-Executive Director of the UK Institute of Customer Service.

Joshua Desbottes
Consumer Regulation Team Leader – Social Housing Regulation Team, Social Housing Directorate, DLUHC

Josh has led the consumer regulation team at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities since 2021. He was responsible for consumer regulation policy in the recently passed Social Housing (Regulation) Act, and supports the Department’s work on the implementation of the proactive consumer regulation regime. Josh previously worked on the Government response to the Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry.

Rachel Dickinson
Project Manager, Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council

Rachel has been responsible for the operational delivery of The Home Office national pilot Clear, Hold, Build in Barnsley. Working within the local authority Rachel has developed a robust multi-agency partnership to drive forwards interventions to tackle those involved in Serious Organised Crime, build local confidence and help facilitate the conditions necessary for the community to thrive.

The work undertaken to establish strong and effective partnerships to deliver community-based interventions has resulted in the pilot to be recognised as national best practice by The Home Office. Rachel is passionate in developing effective working relationships to help deliver meaningful interventions to local communities.

Kate Dodsworth
Chief of Regulatory Engagement, Regulator of Social Housing

Kate started her career in housing 30 years ago in homelessness, working with rough sleepers in Birmingham and later managing homeless hostels in Brighton.

After completing a Masters degree in Housing, she worked at the National Housing Federation for 10 years; latterly as Assistant Director covering London, the South East and East of England. She was Executive Director of People and Communications at Amicus Horizon and, post-merger, as Optivo. Kate was Chief Executive of Gateway Housing Association for three years until starting as Director of Consumer Regulation at the Regulator for Social Housing in July 2021. In 2023, she was appointed Chief of Regulatory Engagement at RSH.

Kate was an external examiner for Westminster University until 2019 and a co-founder of the charity, Leadership2025, which aims to increase representation of black housing professionals in senior roles and address structural inequality.

Tom Durham
Strategic Communications Manager, Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities

Tom works in the campaigns team at DLUHC, focusing on Make Things Right.

Clare Enston
Deputy Director of Insight and Voice, NHS England

Clare is the Deputy Director of Insight and Voice in NHS England where she has worked since 2012. The team focusses on gathering people’ voices about their NHS experience, whether that be through robust statistical surveys, more real-time and continuous methods, complaints or engagement – all with the aim of enabling improvements in experience of care. The team commissions and runs a number of national patient experience surveys, advises other teams on their experience collections; has expertise in patient complaints, qualitative analysis and engagement approaches. Prior to working in NHS England, Clare worked in both customer service and civil service sectors before joining the Yorkshire and the Humber Strategic Health Authority, where she had a regional role in designing and delivering improvement through health informatics.

Peju Fabunmi
Board Member, Greenoak

Peju has 25 years involvement in the housing sector as a manager and consultant with specific experience in planning, property development and acquisitions. Peju initially qualified as an urban planner and has post graduate diplomas in both Urban Design and Property Development & Planning (RICS accredited). Peju is also a career mentor and CIH Chartered Member.

Detective Superintendent Andy Farrell
PIP 3 SOC SIO SOC Local Programme Lead, NPCC SOC Portfolio Office

Andy is a PIP 3 Senior investigating officer and has worked for West Yorkshire Police for over 21 years. He is currently seconded to the national police chief’s council Serious and organised crime (SOC) portfolio office. As the programme lead for delivering the SOC local strategy within a local policing space, he leads on the ambitious delivery of Clear, hold and build (CHB) across all forces in England and Wales by the end of March 2024.

Andy was the lead responsible officer for the initial pilot site in Bradford which brought together a collaborative partnership to tackle serious and organised crime. This led to significant reductions in recorded crime, dismantling of organised crime groups and better communication and engagement with a hard-to-reach community.

Previously, he was a county lines coordinators within the Yorkshire and Humber regional organised crime unit. He worked closely with the national county lines coordination centre to identify children and vulnerable people and target organised crime groups who exploited children and young people by preying on their vulnerability. Andy is a real advocate of collaborative partnership working which focuses on a whole systems response to target the totality of harm, vulnerability, and risk within communities.

Angela Gascoigne
Chief Executive, SHAL Housing

Angela has been CEO at SHAL, a small community housing association based in Somerset since 2014 and a housing professional since 1981 working for local authorities and housing associations across England and Wales. She has led on innovative approaches to anti-social behaviour, support for vulnerable people and systems transformation across multiple services. She has acted as a non-executive director over three decades with organisations working with disabled people, gypsies and travellers, young people and women and was appointed to the Board of the Welsh Probation service. She is a Trustee of Victim Support and chairs the Welsh Committee. She also chairs the National Housing Federation’s Rural Housing Alliance which provides a voice for housing associations’ lobbying and influencing on rural housing. She practices compassionate listening and has introduced restorative process and trauma informed practice at SHAL to support personal and community empowerment and regularly works with people across the USA and the UK to deepen her knowledge and skills.

John Ghader
Chief Executive, Prima Group

John has worked in Housing for over 35 years, both within Local Authorities and Housing Associations, and also spent some time working for the Audit Commission and the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA). John is a Fellow of the CIH and has an MBA from Bradford University. As Group CEO, John reports directly to the Prima Group Board and has overall responsibility for delivering the Group’s Corporate Strategy and is accountable for Prima Group, which includes: Pierhead Housing Association (PHA), Leasowe Community Homes (LCH) and Prima Commercial (PC). John is also an Executive Member of the Group’s Commercial Board.

John Giesen
Chair, Tpas

John is Chair of Tpas, a national organisation promoting best practice for landlord and resident engagement and is also Chair of PRHA, a housing association in East London, providing supported housing for people recovering from drug, alcohol and mental health issues. He is also a a Board member at Hundred Houses Society in Cambridge.

John has more than 50 years experience in housing and was CEO at B3Living, for 10 years, leading them to become a 3* Top 10 Best Company for 5 years in a row. B3Living were also ranked No.4 in the Stonewall WEI and championed ‘End Racism this Generation’ with the Runnymede Trust.

Tracey Gore
Director, Steve Biko Housing Association

Vicky Green
Head of Inclusion and Organisational Culture, WHG

Vicky has over three decades of dedicated service in the housing sector. With a robust background in leading operational teams, innovation and engagement brings a wealth of experience to her role in the People and Culture directorate. As a leader, Vicky is at the forefront of community and colleague engagement, championing Diversity & Inclusion, colleague wellbeing, and overseeing whg's customer and colleague voice programmes. She is committed to design through collaboration and actively incorporates the skills and talents of community members and colleagues into service design and delivery. Her advocacy for collaboration extends to the delivery of community-based programs, engaging with local communities impacted by investment and services. Vicky’s passion for equity focuses on connecting with underrepresented voices, building trust to shape and influence positive change. Vicky is a member of Chartered Institute of Housing and the Housing Diversity Network.

Paul Harris
Chief Customer Officer, Curo Group

Paul joined Curo in 2017 from Acorn Group, an African property management company where he was VP Corporate Affairs. Prior to that he spent five years as Group Director Customer Experience at Unite Students Group where he implemented a highly successful customer digital programme. This was preceded by roles at the South West Regional Development Agency, Laing O’Rourke Group and Royal Mail.

Kathleen Harris-Leighton
Board Member, PA Housing

My name is Kathleen Harris-Leighton and I am currently in my third year as a serving Resident Board Member and Safeguarding Champion for PA Housing. I sit on the Finance, Risk and Audit & Customer Committees. I am passionate about the Customer Voice and I am the link between the board and communities/residents. I am a Community Leader, Therapist, Consultant and Business Women. I am dedicated in supporting and empowering all communities, and that includes underpinning Equality, Diversity & Inclusion in everything I do and say. I am an enthusiastic professional and I sit on numerous steering groups and committees. Cultural competency is essential in today’s global world and I am a proven leader and committed to encouraging cultural understanding.

Nusheen Hussein
Executive Director of Customer and Communities, Home Group

Nusheen has held several senior roles in marketing over the last 30 years across various industry sectors, including publishing, broadcasting, energy, financial services and construction.

Responsible for Customers and Communities, Nusheen oversees corporate strategy, new product development, sustainability and marketing and communications at Home Group.

Alison Inman
Chair, TPAS

Alison Inman is a Chair of the Board at Tpas and Past President of the Chartered Institute of Housing. She sits on the boards of two housing associations and is Co-founder of SHOUT, the social housing campaign group.

Jo Jackson
Resident Engagement Officer, Eastlight Community Homes

Jo is a Resident Engagement Officer at Eastlight Community Homes in Braintree. She leads the Active Residents Network, fostering positive social change involving residents and the community. Jo is genuinely passionate about empowering residents and recognising their unique expertise. She participated in the All-In project, funded by Eastlight to drive community-led solutions and address pressing social issues within local areas.

Kai Jackson
Tenant Advisory Panel (TAP) and tpas Member, TAP, Together with Tenants

Kai completed her BSc (Honours) Psychology and Counselling degree and achieved a British Psychological Society (BPS) accreditation. She has been the chair for her tenant's scrutiny panel for over two years. In that time, Kai has carried out three reviews, been involved in stage 2 complaints, assisted shaping policies, interviewed potential staff members, panel members and been a part of the wider reshaping of the culture of her housing association. Kai has been very vocal in her support for tenants to be more involved with their housing provider and working together to accomplish change, which can be achieved. She has spoken at two conferences with the National Housing Federation (NHF) and most recently became a Tpas Associate and speaking at their customer conference. Kai is very dedicated to tenant involvement, being diverse, without stigma, and heard.

Victoria King
Sector Learning and Development Lead, Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS)

Victoria King is the Sector Learning and Development Lead at the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) and is part of the Quality, Engagement and Development Department. Victoria is part of the team who deliver the Housing Ombudsman Service’ Centre for Learning, which is where HOS share learning from complaints and drive positive complaint handling across the sector. The function also provides insight into service provision from themes and trends in complaints to facilitate sector learning and a positive complaints culture for landlords and governance.

Anita Leech
Chair Customer Voice Board, Prima Group

Anita is a member of the Group Board and Chair of the Customer Voice Board. She has worked in financial services for over 20 years, working with blue chip companies as well as Mastercard and Visa and was part of a team that introduced chip and pin into the Banking world. She left financial services to become a psychotherapist, providing counselling to adults and children on a voluntary basis for 5 years. Anita then became a political candidate and Councillor for the Leasowe and Moreton East Ward and was part of a team responsible for the regeneration of Wirral and for developing the Local Plan.

Anita was also Chair of the planning committee and Deputy Leader of the Council for 2 years before retiring from politics. She has done voluntary work/fundraising since the age of twelve. She is currently a member and Vice Chair of the Leasowe Joint Management Committee, and a school governor at Castleway Primary School and Leasowe Nursery School, which has recently federated to become the Unity Federation. Anita fundraises for the Domestic Abuse Programme – Freedom and has done so for the last 15 years, she is currently the Chair of the Friends of the Freedom Programme. She has previously been a Board Member of the Leasowe Development Trust and the Chair of Leasowe Community Homes, prior to joining Pierhead Housing Association to form Prima Group.

Amanda Leonard
Managing Director, PerfectStorm

Amanda has worked extensively in Executive and Board roles both in the private and not for profit sectors, including Sainsburys, Granada PLC and Compass Group. At SSP - The Food Travel Experts she worked on a pioneering research programme into global food travel consumer behaviour, which led to restaurants being designed around travel consumers needs and preferences, including the introduction of charging points and flight information boards in airport restaurants. In the housing sector she has worked with resident groups to design structures for scrutiny, communication and involvement that are based on understanding customer sentiment and needs. She also led the first post Grenfell resident engagement event to consult on the Social Housing White Paper, working with the Cabinet Office and Housing Minister. Having previously worked at Executive level in Housemark, Amanda is passionate about how data drives decision making and creates capacity.

Simon Lieberman
Regional Manager for the Midlands, Orbit Group

Angela Lockwood
Chief Executive, North Star Housing

Angela is Chief Executive of North Star Housing Group. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing and holds an MBA. She is a Non-Executive Director of Mears PLC and the National Housing Federation.

North Star operates in the North East and is based in Stockton. It works in many highly deprived communities across Teesside and South West Durham. As well as general needs and older persons’ housing, it provides significant numbers of supported housing for a wide variety of needs. North Star has a strong track record in regeneration, community support and finding creative solutions to challenging housing issues. It is working hard to create a highly trusting organisational culture that has led to its IiP Platinum accreditation (first in the sector), and IiP Platinum UK employer of the year 2021 award. The organisation is a curious one, with a strong sense of social purpose, and committed to making a difference.

Steve MacKenzie
Resident, Yorkshire Housing

Steven is retired and a tenant of Yorkshire Housing living in South Yorkshire.

As well as a member of Yorkshire Housing’s Customer Voice and Review Committee, he is the Homes and Environment champion and Chair a tenants group who work with YH on their Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Homes strategy.

Previously, Steven was a member of the Northern Housing Consortium’s Tenants Climate Change Jury.

Laura Magezi
Policy Leader, National Housing Federation

Laura has led on resident engagement and services at the NHF since 2021. Previous to that, she worked at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs (DEFRA), representing and promoting UK objectives at EU and international forums. She holds a degree in Business and Law from the University of Hertfordshire and possesses a dedication to addressing housing issues; driven by a strong desire to make a meaningful and positive impact on society.

Jamie Martin
Head of Community Regeneration, Magenta Living

A passionate and committed advocate of customer engagement in social housing, Jamie has a wealth of experience of working in partnership with residents to improve housing services. He has previously been a director of a leading private sector customer engagement consultancy; worked with thousands of social housing tenants across the North of England; negotiated many stock transfer offers for tenants; developed several Tenant Management Organisations; and been instrumental in applying the concept of social value to social housing. In his current role, as Head of Community Regeneration at Magenta Living, Jamie oversees both customer engagement and community impact and is constantly looking at innovative ways to engage, support and empower customers to thrive within local communities, developing innovative partnerships with organisations in areas such as health and wellbeing; creative arts; financial support; community feeding projects; and employment, skills, education and enterprise.

Patrick Merton-Jones
External Affairs Manager, National Housing Federation

Patrick is the NHF's External Affairs Manager for the South East, working with members in the region across a range of issues. He also leads on the NHF's rural housing work.

Jess Mullins
Head of Member Relations, National Housing Federation

Jess has worked at the NHF since 2017. She has worked in our public affairs team and has been Head of Member relations since 2021 leading on equality, diversity and inclusion; general election work and larger housing association members. Prior to joining the NHF Jess worked in Parliament.

Pamela Newman
Chair, MTVH Customer Council

To date, Pamela has worked predominantly in the voluntary sector, working in senior roles within mental health, learning disabilities and community development. She currently works as Deputy Director of Operations for Evolve Housing + Support, which provides intensive support to homeless and marginalised people throughout London. Pamela is also Chair of the Board of Trustees for a small mental health and employment support charity in south London. She is passionate about giving people a voice and opportunity to be heard, and share their knowledge and experience with others to increase life opportunities to raise living standards. Pamela joined the MTVH Customer Services Committee in September 2020, to influence systemic change in the way that MTVH works to better the lives of tenants and residents.

Aasia Nisar
Head of Resident and Community Engagement, Red Kite Community Housing

Aasia heads up our Resident and Community Engagement Team and is passionate about supporting tenants and giving them the opportunity to help Red Kite improve its services.

Aasia’s team is responsible for delivering our community investment programme, leading the implementation of the Resident and Community Engagement Strategy and developing partnerships that help to realise the potential in our communities.

Jenny Osborne
CEO, Tpas

Jenny Osbourne is Chief Executive at Tpas – the tenant engagement experts - and has been in this role since 2014. Her previous role was Head of Corporate Services with specific responsibility for membership and governance matters. She is an English Graduate from Leeds University. Prior to working for Tpas Jenny worked for the Post Office on their management programme in the branch network.

Jenny is also the Chair of Stockport Homes Group and is a board member of the National Federation of ALMO’s. Jenny is passionate about the tenant engagement agenda and is a strong advocate for effective partnership working between tenants, providers, contractors and government.

Deborah Owen-Ellis Clark
Group Director Customer Experience, Places for People

Deborah is an award-winning, strategic customer focussed senior leader, responsible for creating the Places for People’s Customer Experience strategy. Deborah set up the new Customer Experience function with the purpose of delivering an effortless Customer experience, establishing best practice standards and benchmarks for every Customer interaction across the Enterprise. Building Customer trust, engagement, and advocacy.

With over 25 years of experience, Deborah has a proven history in the development and success of customer-focused placemaking, destination and retail brands. Deborah is passionate about connecting people with products and places, by developing insights-led brand propositions, customer experiences, marketing, and communication strategies and by engaging all stakeholders, communities and technology.

Jack Packman
Regional Place Manager South, Orbit Group

Jack joined Orbit Housing in November 2022 as the Regional Place Manager for the South team. His background is in Social Prescribing and Community Safety. Jack worked for a number of VCSE sector organisations developing health inequalities projects and social prescribing services. He is passionate about hyper local services being delivered to our customers across the region and enjoy working for Orbit Housing as well all work to put the needs of the customer first.

Sarah Sargent
Director of Housing and Neighbourhoods, Guinness Partnerships

Sarah is Director of Housing & Neighbourhoods for the Guinness Partnership where she is responsible for all field based housing and estate services across the country. Before joining the sector in 2019, Sarah held a variety of senior customer service and customer experience roles, primarily in financial services, where for six years she helped lead a customer culture transformation within a large debt recovery company during a period of increasing regulation.

Dave Smith
Head of Resident and Community Engagement, Eastlight Community Homes

Dave is a community organizer and affordable housing practitioner. He served for several years as Chair of the London Community Land Trust and was the organization’s founding Executive Director from 2008 to 2014. He previously worked for the British Council and on Barack Obama’s 2008 primary and presidential campaigns. More recently, he has worked at the National Housing Foundation. He is currently Head of Communities at Eastlight Community Homes, a nonprofit housing provider based in Essex and Suffolk.

Jenny Spoor
Director of Operations, The Havebury Housing Partnership

Jenny is director of operations at Havebury, responsible for all customer facing services. These include asset management and repairs, complaints, resident engagement and experience, housing management, sustainability and communications.

She has worked in housing for over 20 years and is passionate about delivering the best experience and services to residents, their homes and communities.

Andy Sturgess
National Specification Manager, Aico

Andy Sturgess is the National Specification Manger for Aico, providing a consultative role to advise on home life safety products, legislative and regulatory requirements.

David Tai
Head Of Operations, Crosby Housing Association

Dave has worked in social housing for almost 37 years, starting his career with the local authority, before moving into the world of Housing Associations.

Starting his career in 1987 with Liverpool City Council, he has held a series of senior positions with the Plus Dane Group, Cheshire West and Chester Council and for the past 8 years, he has been the Head of Housing & Property Services with Crosby Housing Association, a community-based association, who owns and manages almost 450 properties in the Sefton area of Merseyside.

Crosby Housing Association is a key member of the Community Housing Associations Northwest (CHA NW) collaboration group. CHANW represents community-based housing associations operating in the Northwest of England, bringing together 21 member organisations owning and managing over 16,000 properties.

Dave chairs the CHANW Customer Offer Group, who’s key focus is to find ways for tenants to become more involved in the work of social landlords, ensuring that we meet the needs of tenants and that their homes are compliant. The group focuses on how to improve communication with tenants and encourages them to actively be involved with their landlord.

Nasrat Tania
Member, JRF Stigma Free Futures Design Team

Nasrat moved to the UK from Bangladesh 13 years ago, ever since she's been living in East London, specifically Tower Hamlets. Due to this, on a daily basis she sees both the effects of poverty and stigma. For the last few years, she's been working as a peer researcher in communities and has been made aware of many people’s individual experiences of such issues. She is a member of the JRF Stigma Free Futures Design Team which brings together people from a wide variety of disciplines (policy, academia, funding, community, service delivery, charity), all rooted in direct experience, to develop new insight and analysis on the stigma of poverty and decide on priority areas for action.

Evelyn Williams
Policy Officer, National Housing Federation

Evelyn is a housing professional and part-time housing lecturer. Her current role at the NHF is Policy Officer leading on Together with Tenants - supporting housing associations to implement the charter, Competence and Conduct Standards and BSHR Best Practice and the Procurement Act.

Rachael Williamson
Head of Policy and External Affairs, Chartered Institute of Housing

Rachael Williamson is head of policy and external affairs at the Chartered Institute of Housing, where she’s worked since 2021. Prior to this she worked for the civil service for over 10 years in a number of government departments (Ministry of Housing, Cabinet Office, Defra), as well as for Citizens Advice.

Paul Woollam
Director for Customer Excellence, Acis Group

Paul has been one of our directors since 2007. He has overall responsibility for operational and support services to our customers and is passionate about the delivery of these.

He is a qualified housing professional, a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing and member of the Chartered Management Institute.

Paul acts as a mentor for the Chartered Institute of Housing Careers Mentoring Service and is a long-serving governor of Selston Bagthorpe Primary School in Nottinghamshire.

Joy Worrell
Resident Inspector, Hexagon

Joy is a Hexagon resident who volunteers as a resident inspector.