Alison Inman
Chair, Tpas

Alison Inman is the Chair of Tpas, the housing sector’s engagement organisation. She is a board member at Saffron Housing Trust, where she chairs the Service Quality Committee, Procurement for Housing, and Balkerne Gardens Trust.

Alison is a former Chair of Colchester Borough Homes and the National Federation of ALMOs and is a Co-founder of SHOUT, the social housing campaign group. She received an OBE in 2017 for services to social housing tenants.

Chris Blackett
Chair of the Gateway Membership Team, Watford Community Housing

Chris went from volunteering in a school helping children to read, to becoming Chair of the Stock Transfer Advisory Group in a very short space of time. She went from having no business qualifications to being a part of negotiations with Barclays in the Board Room when the council transferred its housing stock to Watford Community Housing in 2007.

It was during this transfer that Chris successfully championed the ‘community gateway’ model to her fellow tenants. Her influence ensured that Watford Community Housing was formed as a community gateway housing association, making it one of a very small number of housing providers that gives tenants more power to influence how the organisation is run.

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.

Francis Burrows
Head of Independent Living, Orbit

Francis is leading a transformation programme as Executive Director of Customer and Operational Services at Wandle, building on previous experience in senior customer service roles at Orbit and Black Country Housing Group. He is also Chair at Pioneer Group in Birmingham, bringing the additional experience of leading the board of a community focused housing association.

Isobelle Connor
Strategic Research Analyst, London & Quadrant Housing Trust

Dr. Mercy Denedo
Associate Professor in Accounting, Durham University Business School

Dr. Mercy Denedo is an Associate Professor of Accounting at Durham University Business School. Her research focuses on social and environmental issues from a critical perspective. She has researched stigma in social housing, explored the intersectionality of stigma and its impact on the quality of life and the life chances of those living in social housing. In collaboration with the Stop Social Housing Stigma Campaign, Professor Amanze Ejiogu from Sheffield Hallam University, The Chartered Institute of Housing, TPAS, and YDC Consultants, have developed the Tackling the Stigma Journey Planner. This framework aims to assist housing providers in tackling the stigma in social housing.

Margaret Dodwell
Chief Operating Officer, VIVID

Margaret Dodwell is the Chief Operating Officer at VIVID, with 36,000 homes across the central south of England.  She is also the Audit, Risk and Assurance Committee Chair at EPIC.

Margaret has worked in housing for almost thirty years initially in finance before moving into general management.  She is a member of both CIPFA and CIH.

Margaret is currently leading the transformation of VIVID’s customer experience and service improvement, including driving its customer influence strategy to build on the strong foundations already in place.

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.

Ailsa Dunn
Executive Director of Insight & Group Services, Prima Group

Colette Flattery
Director of Customer Experience, Home Group

Colette's career has been focused on working in challenging industries where the macro environment is particularly impactful. Having worked in the UK and offshore in Cape Town, India and the Philippines she has led complex and disparate customer service and complaint teams. Colette believes that being accountable for complaint management provides a great opportunity to understand what really matters to customers and therefore how to improve services. Adapting to the changing needs of customers is exciting, challenging and what motivates her to strive to deliver better outcomes for customers.

Andy Fry OBE
Associate Consultant, Tpas

Andy specialises in strategy, performance improvement and governance, along with having a particular interest in the fields of organisational change and leadership.

He brings a wide range of consultancy experience in the housing sector to his position as an Associate with Tpas, and has an ongoing role in providing independent support to the NHF’s Tenant Advisory Panel.

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.

Craig Goold
Head of Strategy and Innovation for Customer Operations, Starling Bank

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.

Kate Henderson
Chief Executive, National Housing Federation

Kate 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.

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.

Charlaine Nkum
Vice Chair Resident Strategy Group, Vice Chair Resident Strategy Group

Sonji Nurse
Resident Board Member, Hexagon Housing Association

Sonji is a Resident Board Member for Hexagon Housing Association and an elected member of the Performance Review, Repairs and Strategic Core Groups.  These groups hold the housing association to account, analyse performance metrics, statistical data, and benchmarking performance against other similar sized housing providers.

Sonji is an experienced strategic, transformational, change management, quality assurance professional whose aptitude has consistently driven performance enhancement, delivering tangible results over more than two decades across private, legal, non-profit, and public sectors.

Maggie Porteous
Board Member, Abri

Maggie is an experienced non executive and is the Senior Independent Director on the Abri Group Board, chairs their South East Regional Board and also sits on the Abri People and Culture Committee. Maggie is also a non executive Board member for the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and was until last year the Chair of the John Lewis Foundation. Maggie spent 31 years working in John Lewis department stores culminating in leading the 24,000 Partners in 51 shops as the John Lewis Director of Shop Trade.

Marie Porter
Phoenix Academy Manager, Phoenix Community Housing

Since 2014, Marie has managed and developed the sector’s first award winning school of social housing – the Phoenix Academy. Initially Set up to encourage more residents to become involved with Phoenix and potentially take up future positions on our resident-led Board, the school of social housing has evolved to support anyone involved in the housing sector.

As a qualified assessor and tutor, Marie has supported over 490 residents, colleagues and external learners to gain qualifications in Academy Level 1 and CIH Levels 2, 3 and 4 courses – with Level 5 in the making. With a passion for education and personal development, Marie is also a member of the CIH London forum and mentors students undertaking Masters programmes at Greenwich university.

Sue Ramsden
Policy Leader / Board Member, National Housing Federation / Thamesreach Housing

Sue leads the Federation's policy work on housing management and supported housing.  She is a board member of Thamesreach Housing a small specialist homelessness provider in London.

Liane Sheppard
Director of Property Services

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.

Selina White
Chief Executive, Magna Housing

Selina has led Magna Housing for six years, where she has championed innovative solutions for affordable housing across the South West. As the Chief Executive, she has spearheaded initiatives that prioritise community well-being, sustainability, inclusivity and growth. Selina’s unwavering commitment to affordable housing has made her a respected voice in the industry. She actively collaborates with stakeholders to address housing challenges.

Selina is Chair of the National Housing Federation’s South West Leadership Forum and plays a pivotal role in shaping housing policies and strategies in the region. She is also a dedicated member of Homes for the South West, a collaboration of the 12 largest developing housing associations in the region, helping to shape national housing policy and driving positive change.