Helia Ebrahimi
Economics Correspondent, Channel 4 News

Channel 4 News' Economics Correspondent Helia Ebrahimi reports on the big changes in the economy and the public finances and how they'll influence the world you live in.

Michael Appleby
Managing Director, Altair

Michael has overall responsibility for Altair’s broad range of Consulting services provided to clients in the housing, local authority and related sectors, in the UK and Internationally. Michael has worked with boards and executive teams in the housing sector for nearly 20 years. Michael now primarily works with clients on horizon scanning, transformation, strategy, strategic HR, technology and regulation activities. Michael also takes a lead on Altair thought leadership activities. This has included projects such as; Future Gazing Future Shaping 2025 series, research into alleviating poverty in social housing and identifying ways to improve the supply of affordable housing in London through collaboration between LAs and RPs. Michael was also co-author of Altair’s review of the near failure of Cosmopolitan and he also co-authored previous NHF guidance on board remuneration in the sector. With a strong interest in the way the sector is governed and how services are delivered to customers. Michael is also now involved in working to identify how artificial intelligence and other modern technologies can be used to navigate current challenges in the sector and improve the way organisations operate.

Jacque Allen
Chief Executive Officer, Your Housing Group

Shaeen Azam
Chief Finance Officer, Golden Lane Housing

Shaeen is an experienced finance director with over fourteen years of experience in the housing sector. She has significant knowledge and experience of all aspects of finance including Corporate Finance and Treasury management. She holds two Non Executive Directors positions on Sheffield Childrens Hospital Trust and Connect Housing Board. Shaeen is a Chartered Certified Accountant and a corporate treasurer and holds an MBA from the University of Birmingham.

Matthias Barker
Policy Leader, National Housing Federation

Matthias is the Policy Leader for finance at the National Housing Federation, having joined in 2024. His brief covers rent policy, the financial sustainability of the sector, and new investment models in affordable housing, as well as a range of other finance policy issues including coordinating the housing SORP. He previously worked in L&Q's strategic research team, where he led on policy development and research on behalf of both L&Q, and the G15, whilst L&Q were in the chair.

Peter Benz
Chief Financial Officer, Sovereign Network Group

Prior to his appointment at SNG Peter was Executive Director of Finance at Network Homes which he joined in 2019. Overall, he has nearly two decades worth of senior finance experience in housing, advertising and retail, in both public and private sectors. He has a strong, diverse approach to analysis, financial planning and value addition.

Andrew Berry
Head of Portfolio Management, Orbit

Helen Berry
Tax Director, BDO

Helen is a Director in the North West Tax department and leads the provision of tax services to the Not for Profit sector in the North for BDO. Helen has worked within the Not for Profit sector for over 20 years, with a particular focus on Social Housing. Over the years her portfolio of clients has remained varied dealing with small owner-managed businesses, large corporate groups and a variety of organisations in the Not for Profit sector. This experience enables her to bring a wider commercial understanding in terms of dealing with the tax affairs of her clients. Helen also works closely with BDO's corporate finance team in relation to the tax structuring of corporate acquisitions, mergers and disposals.

Barrington Billings
Chair, BME National

Barrington began his senior housing career in 1990 and for six years was Executive Director at Hallmark Community Housing in Derby. Since then, he has held senior Executive-level posts at a number of housing associations, including six years as Area Director (Midlands) Places for People Group, two years Stock Transfer Adviser for the Housing Corporation and two years as Executive Director for Hamac Housing (Prime Focus Group) Birmingham. In 2004 he set up his own property services company Glendon Group in Birmingham providing a range of planned major works contracts to the housing sector including a national contract with the MOD across 16 sites UK wide. Barrington is currently Head of Asset Management and Development at Tuntum Housing Association in Nottingham. In addition to executive roles, he has also served on a number of boards; outside of the housing sector he has served as a non-executive board member at the Academy for Sustainable Communities and seven years for an NHS Trust, and was Chair of the Joint Awarding Body of the CIOB & CIH 2007 - 2008. He was an external examiner at De Montfort University and a visiting speaker at Warwick Business School and Birmingham City University. Within the sector he has served on the Boards of Gentoo Group in Sunderland (2008 - 2017) chaired Arhag Housing in London (2007 - 2013), and was also a Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing Governing board from 2000 - 2008, serving as President from 2005 - 2006. He is currently Chair of Manningham Housing Association in Bradford since 2017.

Tina Black
Senior Rent and Service Charge Accountant, The Guinness Partnership

Tina has been with The Guinness Partnership for over four years and brings more than two decades of financial experience from a range of commercial sectors. In her current role, Tina specialises in income optimisation and transformation, as well as budgetary control and cost management. Her expertise is further enhanced by her experience as a business partner to both Asset Management and Operations and Improvements. Tina is passionate about delivering value for money to residents, placing a strong emphasis on operational efficiencies through process redesign and the implementation of effective controls.

Gary Booth
Chief Financial Officer, Citizen Housing

Gary was appointed Chief Financial Officer on a permanent basis in 2021 and is responsible for the Finance, Treasury, People, ICT and Assurance functions within Citizen. He has worked within Finance and Corporate Services at Citizen since 2003 having previously worked for Deloitte.

Michaela Booth
Director of Corporate Finance and Treasury, Altair

Michaela leads our Corporate Finance & Treasury service across Altair and ATFS (FCA regulated). Her expertise includes growth and investment strategies, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, ESG and funding. She has extensive experience advising executives and boards on funding and investment, growth, credit rating, financial planning, and analysis.

Anna Brennan
Financial Performance and Improvement Director, The Hyde Group

Anna has been working at the Hyde Group for five years, and within the sector for 10. Previous to that she was an external auditor working at Deloitte specialising in not for profit clients, she is a qualified accountant and normally a finance professional. Currently she is the Finance System Implementation Director, overseeing the introduction of Workday to the Hyde Group. The Hyde Group went live with Workday Financials and Adaptive planning in 2022 after a very successful implementation in May and are now coming up to their first financial year end. Anna was seconded to the project full time, but her substantive role in Hyde is within the finance department looking after the Business Support team (management accounting, business partnering, budgeting and forecasting).

David Brigden
Senior Commercial Director, The Housing Finance Corporation

David Brigden joined The Housing Finance Corporation in July 2025 with 25 years of experience in real estate, housing and corporate finance having held senior roles at Lloyds Banking Group, most recently as Head of Social and Supported Housing. David leads portfolio management and strategic growth at the company. He also serves on the board of YMCA Together.

Stephen Bromley
ICT Consultant, Bromley Consultancy Services

Steven Brook
Chief Executive, Harrogate Housing Association

Steven is a Chartered Accountant with over 20 years working in the not for profit sector, including 12 in housing. He leads on corporate restructuring including charity formation, conversion and acquisition/ merger and associated legal and regulatory approval requirements.

Duncan Brown
Chief Financial Officer, MTVH

Tim Bryars
Team Lead, Iplicit

Joseph Carr
Chair of Finance Risk and Audit Committee, mhs homes

Joseph is a qualified accountant of several decades with Big Four experience. He has been associated with the sector on and off for the majority of his working life – very early on he worked for Hyde Housing Group for a number of years, and altogether, for more than a decade, at the NHF. He has since worked for Altair Consultancy and MORhomes, the bond aggregator. He now splits his time between MORhomes but mostly with Savills on an associate basis. He is a Board member and Chair of Finance Audit and Risk Committee, mhs homes Group and was previously the Chair of the Treasury and Finance Committee, Longhurst Group. From these roles he has gained a wealth of knowledge and experience in then finance and business models of social housing, including financial accounting and reporting, treasury, pensions, tax accounting, risk management, compliance, governance and mergers. At Savills he work with For-Profit RPs.

Reuben Christian
Edutainer and Coach

Jonathan Clarke
Executive Director, Sparrow Housing Group

David Cleary
Managing Director & Head of Housing Commercial Banking, Lloyds Banking Group

David is a Managing Director with responsibility for Lloyds Banking Group’s relationships with clients in the house building and social housing sectors. Having joined Lloyds Bank in 1989, David undertook numerous roles across Retail and Commercial Banking before joining the Capital Markets division in 2000. David was instrumental in the development of the Bank’s Capital Markets business in both the public and private debt markets in the UK, USA and Europe. In January 2017, David returned to relationship banking to create a new team with responsibility for UK Housing. David has a passion for sustainability and in 2021 became a Board director of Sustainability for Housing Ltd and joined the Executive Committee of NextGeneration, both of which focus upon developing sustainability reporting standards and frameworks in the rental and new build markets. He also supports Regeneration Brainery which focuses on the putting the ‘S’ in ESG.

Matt Cooper
Tax and Treasury Director, Places for People

Matt started his career at PwC and Deutsche Bank before moving into corporate treasury, having held positions at Old Mutual, Expro and Affinity Sutton. He is currently a member of the National Housing Federation’s Finance Policy Advisory Group and formally a non-executive director of Soho Housing. Matt is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales and Fellow of the Association of Corporate Treasurers.

Anne Costain
Chief Financial Officer, Stonewater

Anne is a qualified Chartered Accountant and Corporate Treasurer. She has worked in housing for over 10 years at a senior level. Before working in housing, Anne worked in manufacturing for a number of organisations, from SME to Fortune 500 and FTSE 250 – latterly as Finance Director for De la Rue in its Currency and Supply Chain division.

Jonathan Cox
Chief Data Officer, Housemark

Jonathan has over 15 years' experience providing data analysis and business support to the social housing sector. He previously worked for two large London housing associations before joining the Housemark data team in 2012. Jonathan has delivered a range of data consultancy projects, and recent clients include Catalyst Group, Trivallis, Solihull Community Housing, Stonewater Group and Aster Group.

Ilona Cristea
Assistant Finance Director – Property Services and Commercial, Peabody

Ilona is an experienced finance professional specialising in the housing sector. With over two decades of experience, she is an FCCA-qualified accountant skilled in business partnering, group accounting, budgeting, and financial reporting. Before joining Peabody in 2022, Ilona was Head of Group Accounting at Catalyst, where she oversaw financial operations. In addition to her professional achievements, she is a Board Member of Greenhill Housing Association, an innovative and growing organisation providing housing in London and the South East.

Ruth Curtice
Chief Executive, Resolution Foundation

Ruth is the Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation. She was previously director of fiscal policy at HM Treasury (HMT) where she worked for over 15 years. Her career has focused on domestic economic policy including labour markets, tax, fiscal policy and financial regulation. Ruth has held a wide range of roles in HMT, including working in the Chancellor’s private office, supporting the Independent Commission on Banking, and leading the Treasury’s distributional analysis.

Caroline Dakin
Resilience Coach

Caroline is our Head of Learning & Development and the founder and owner of Caroline Dakin Associates. Her thought-provoking training programmes help businesses across the globe to build high-performing teams. Her unique and interactive delivery style encourages participants to question their leadership qualities and challenges them to, not only reach but surpass their potential. Backed up by neuroscience and supplemented with practical tools, techniques and resources, her training inspires action and change for a better, more resilient workplace. Caroline is also an accomplished speaker and can be found sharing her unique take on resilience at corporate leadership events, national awareness days, industry conferences, and educational seminars.

Phil Day
Chief Finance Officer, Peabody

Phil has worked in the social housing sector for over 20 years in both Executive and Non-Executive roles and joined Peabody as Chief Financial Officer in September 2024. Prior to joining Peabody, Phil was Group Finance Director at the Guinness Partnership for seven years. Phil is an FCA Qualified accountant and a current member of the NHF’s Finance Policy Advisory Group.

Michael Dent
Director of Business Change, Bernicia Group

Michael is the Director of Business Change at Bernicia Group and has held this position since May 2025. He originally joined Bernicia in April 2023 as Project Director to oversee it's Salesforce platform implementation. He has extensive experience in project and change management, having previously worked in the water and energy utility industries. He is now leading Bernicia on the implementation of their Business Improvement Strategy, designing an enduring framework and establishing an expert team to support the group to manage its change portfolio.

Béatrice de Taisne
Managing Director and Analytical Manager, Sovereign and IPF, S&P Global Ratings

Beatrice is the Analytical Manager for S&P Global Ratings UK and Nordic International Public Finance based in London. She manages a team of 15 analysts, spread over offices in London and Stockholm. The portfolio covered by her team comprises 120 entities. She previously headed the EMEA Utilities team. She has an in-depth knowledge of public finance as well as both regulated and unregulated utilities. She spent some time covering the Oil and Gas sector. Beatrice joined S&P Utilities team in 2005. Her previous experiences include Mergers and Acquisitions with UBS Investment Bank and the Merger Task Force department in the European Commission. She is a CFA Charterholder. Beatrice holds a BA majoring in Corporate Finance from the University Paris IX (Dauphine) and a Masters in Economy and Finance from the University Institut d'Etudes Politiques (IEP) of Paris. She also holds a Master of Economics from the College of Europe, in Bruges.

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.

Nick Duffin
Principal, Employment Taxes, BDO

Ben Earl
Head of Partnerships and Sustainability, Abri

Ben is Head of Partnerships and Sustainability at Abri, who manage over 50,000 properties across the south, employ over 1,500 staff and are part of the Greener Futures Partnership. Ben is delivering corporate sustainability targets that Abri has adopted, including reaching ‘net zero’ for carbon across the business by 2035 and crucially for all customer properties and the wider supply chain by 2050. Retrofitting the Abri estate is a key part of the strategy to deliver against these science-based targets, as is greening the supply chain and building new homes to ensure warm, affordable and sustainable housing for residents.

Karin Erlander
Senior Director, Credit, The Housing Finance Corporation

Karin Erlander joined The Housing Finance Corporation in November 2025, bringing 25 years of credit analysis experience across various sectors. Prior to joining, Karin spent 18 years at S&P Global Ratings, analysing credit risk across sectors such as utilities, infrastructure, consumer products, and health care. In the last nine years, she focused on to social housing providers, universities, and local authorities. She holds a Diploma in Economics from London School of Economics and a BSc in Public Administration with advanced studies in accounting and finance from Stockholm University, Sweden.

Nicola Ewen
Chief Financial Officer and Deputy Chief Executive, SettleParadigm

Nicola is responsible for the financial leadership of the Group and the delivery of key financial plans and services that support strategic objectives. Her role is to develop and deliver the Group’s financial strategy and maintain financial viability. She is an ACCA qualified accountant who has worked in senior strategic roles within housing for many years. She was CFO at Paradigm for over six years and Director of Financial Services at Notting Hill Genesis for five years before that. She was also a Board member at Grand Union Housing Group and is currently a trustee at the Chiltern Neuro Centre.

Edward Farnsworth
Executive Group Director of Finance, L&Q

Ed has worked at L&Q for 18 years in various Finance roles and was appointed Deputy Group Finance Director in 2019. He is a qualified accountant with extensive experience of working in the social housing finance sector. He has been instrumental at L&Q in forging a financial strategy, based on strong commercial discipline while setting risk appetite and tolerance levels that maximise output of news homes delivery while safeguarding social housing assets and maintaining customer, investor, regulator and board confidence. He has extensive experience of property investment and holds board positions on L&Q’s strategic land business, L&Q Estates, which holds 50,000 land plots and on Barking Riverside a joint venture with the GLA delivering 10,800 new homes, as well as experience of board membership on multiple joint ventures with volume housebuilders. He also chairs L&Q’s Senior Leadership Group and L&Q’s ‘Investment & Property Group’ responsible for approving and monitoring individual development projects up to £100m total cost. Ed also sits on the Board and chairs the audit committee of the North London Muslim Housing Association (NLMHA) that operates in his home community.

George Flynn
Director, Savills Financial Consultants

George is a Director within Savills Financial Consultants (“SFC”). SFC is part of the Affordable Housing Division within Savills PLC, a listed company on the FTSE 250, and is retained advisor to over 60 Housing Association customers and acts for a further 20 clients on an ad-hoc basis. George joined SFC in November 2022 and since joining has supported numerous clients in strategic treasury exercises across multiple financing markets. George has extensive experience supporting capital raising across the banking and capital markets (UK and North American Institutional Investors). Prior to joining SFC, George spent a decade at NatWest in a variety of different roles supporting clients access the public and private capital markets and conducting strategic risk management transactions. George has experience across multiple sectors including Housing Associations, Universities, Infrastructure, Real Estate, Corporate and Charitable issuers.

Lauren Fradgley
Assistant Director of Treasury, Stonewater

Lauren leads the Treasury team at Stonewater and has worked in the housing sector for over eight years. Prior to this she worked in Investment Banking at BNP Paribas, in Mergers & Acquisitions and then Equity Capital Markets. Lauren is passionate about the work she does, building and working with great teams and advisors and always striving to deliver the best possible outcomes. Her team won Team of the Year at the 2023 Housing Heroes Awards. She studied at the University of Nottingham, gaining a Physics degree and then a Masters degree in Banking and Financial Markets.

Francis Gater
Director - Affordable Housing - Value and Risk Advisory, JLL

Francis has worked in the housing sector for over 12 years, providing housing consultancy services to registered provider and private sector investors. He specialises in advising on transactions of affordable housing and is a senior member of a team that has transacted over £4bn of social housing nearing 50,000 homes. This includes the largest transaction in the sector to date, L&Q’s 3,500 home transfer to SettleParadigm which completed earlier this year. Francis has been a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) since 2018 and is also a RICS Registered Valuer.

Grant Gevers
Senior Solution Consultant, Nonprofit, Sage

Lawrence Gill
Director, Centrus

Lawrence is an experienced advisor specialising in treasury strategy, risk management and debt capital markets. He regularly advises a range of housing associations in delivering strategic financial solutions including hedging, corporate restructures, mergers, capital raising and investor engagement.

Adam Gravely
Policy Officer, National Housing Federation

Adam leads the NHF’s policy work on shared ownership and accessible housing, and supports policy development across new housing supply and sector finances. He joined the NHF in 2024. Prior to this, he was a Graduate Trainee and later a People & Purpose Strategist at the John Lewis Partnership, owner of John Lewis and Waitrose. Adam is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He holds a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Warwick and a Master’s in Business and Management from De Montfort University. Adam grew up in social housing and has lived experience as an involved resident and as a young carer.

Rob Griffiths
Deputy Chief Executive, Amplius

Having joined the organisation in 1994, Rob was the Chief Financial Officer since 2006 and became Deputy Chief Executive in 2015. Rob has led and been involved in a number of key growth projects, with extensive experience in developing a business plan that's now delivering around 700 new homes each year across a range of different tenures. Elsewhere, Rob is the Chair of the Housing Statement of Recommended Practice Working Party (SORP) and in 2016 was appointed as a member of the Financial Reporting Council's Technical Advisory Group. More recently, in February 2018, Rob was appointed as an employer representative to the Social Housing Pension Scheme (SHPS).

Gary Grigor
Partner, Devonshires

Gary is a Partner in the Banking team and co-heads the wider Leeds office alongside Chris Drabble. He acts for borrowers, lenders and trustees on real-estate finance related arrangements, with a renowned specialism in social housing finance. He has extensive experience of advising on a range of financial instruments and arrangements, including syndicated and bilateral loan facilities; facility restructurings; mergers; group collapses; intra-group funding; interest rate derivatives; private shelf facilities, and high-value private bond issues.

Mike Grimditch
Director of Financial Strategy, Greensquare Accord

Judy Hardy
Chief Risk Officer, Places for People

After starting her career in the public and charitable sectors, Judy joined Places for People in 2005 and has worked in a variety of roles including as Head of the CEO’s office, in the Placemaking and Regeneration team and as Director of Regulation. She’s motivated by making a difference for Customers and now leads the Group’s risk and compliance function to support Places for People to operate in a safe and compliant way.  Judy graduated from Warwick University with a BA Honours in French and History and is a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing.

Amy Harhoff
Chief Executive, East Midlands Combined County Authority

Amy Harhoff is the first permanent Chief Executive of the East Midlands Combined County Authority. Amy joined EMCCA from her role as Corporate Director for Regeneration, Economy, and Growth at Durham County Council, where she led major initiatives for the past four years. Her extensive leadership experience also includes senior roles at Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, South Yorkshire Combined Authority, and Transport for Greater Manchester. Working alongside Mayor Claire Ward, Amy is driving forward EMCCA’s ambitious agenda, focused on improving transport, housing, skills, employment, and climate resilience. Her leadership is rooted in collaboration and delivery, bringing together local authorities, businesses, and communities to unlock the region’s full potential. With a clear vision for inclusive growth, Amy is harnessing the East Midlands’ strengths, from world-class universities and global industries to a thriving visitor economy and rich cultural heritage. Under her leadership, EMCCA is building a more connected, skilled, and sustainable region - one with a strong identity and shared purpose.

Jeanne Harrison
Vice President – Senior Credit Officer, Moody’s

Jeanne Harrison joined Moody’s in early 2014 as an Analyst in the Sub-Sovereign Group with a focus on UK housing associations. Immediately prior to joining Moody’s, Jeanne worked as an FP&A Analyst for The Hyde Group, a London-based housing association. Her primary responsibilities were delivering the Group five-year business plan, stress testing, and peer analysis. Previously, she worked as a management accountant in the higher education sector with responsibility for budgeting, forecasting, and monthly management accounts. Jeanne holds a BSc in Finance from Florida State University and is a Chartered Management Accountant.

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.

Keely Henderson
Head of Treasury – Property, Riverside

Nicola Henry
Head of Long Income Origination, Canada Life

Catherine Holmes
Assistant Director – Regional - MP – North, Homes England

Catherine started her surveying career at 18 working in private practice on motorway and bridges. Years later, after a stint in housing development and professionally qualifying in commercial property, she joined the NW Regional Development Agency and has since had the pleasure of playing her part in developing some of the most iconic schemes in Liverpool and the wider region. Now working at Homes England, the Government’s Housing and Regeneration Agency, Catherine leads the Team of multi-disciplinary professionals who support local leaders and partners across Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester in achieving transformational growth and change, unlocking complex housing and regeneration projects. In recent years as a Chartered Surveyor, Catherine has enjoyed supporting the RICS Inspire initiative. As an Ambassador for the programme, she is a regular speaker and contributor to sustainability sessions and career workshops at universities, schools and colleges.

Rod Holdsworth
Chief Financial Officer, Hyde Group

Rod Holdsworth is Chief Financial & Resources Officer at the Hyde Group. Rod has worked across multiple sectors, including facilities management, construction, housebuilding, engineering services, waste management and medical device healthcare. He’s led the finances of a diverse range of organisations, from multinationals with 90,000 employees to small UK companies with fewer than 200. He was CFO at Crest Nicholson plc, Wates Group, OCS Group and Morrison plc, and held senior Finance roles at Alfred McAlpine plc and Smiths Industries plc. Rod trained as a civil engineer before moving into finance, where he trained with PwC. He’s also a director of British Carriage Driving.

Yasmin Holley
Chief Finance Director, Amplius

Yasmin is Director of Finance at Amplius, the single organisation created following the merger of Longhurst Group and Grand Union Housing Group in December 2024. Yasmin started her career with PwC, qualifying as an accountant and completing a degree in accounting whilst progressing within PwC’s external audit practice. She continued to work in professional services before moving into the housing sector five years ago. Alongside her role at Amplius, Yasmin sits on the Audit and Risk Committee of Hundred Houses Society, the ICAEW Social Housing Sub-Committee and the SORP Working Party. Yasmin is a fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and has recently completed an MBA.

Helen Hunter
Partner, Addleshaw Goddard

Helen is a London based Partner in the Finance team at AG, specialising in Social, Sustainable and Green Finance and Social Housing Finance. She is ranked as a "Next Generation Partner" for social housing finance in the Legal 500. Helen has over 15 years of experience in the social housing sector and extensive experience of acting for all types of private debt funders and investors in the social housing finance market. She regularly advises funders on all aspects of social housing finance, including large merger transactions and high value transactions to housing associations. Increasingly, her experience covers advising funders on sustainability / social impact linked loans and green finance.

Nasreen Hussain
Director of Finance and Resources, Soha Housing

Nasreen is a qualified accountant with over 20 years experience as Finance Director in the housing associations sector. In between her Director positions, Nasreen worked for the social housing regulator as a Financial Analyst. Nasreen is passionate about service delivery and is motivated by making a real difference through leading, developing and maintaining excellent customer focused services.

Alex Ingram
Assistant Director, Guarantees Programmes, Homes England

Alex Ingram is responsible for the delivery and management of over £12 billion of housing guarantees on behalf of the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government. Alex joined Homes England in 2018. Prior to this, her 18 year career in NatWest included a broad range of banking and risk roles, including corporate and commercial real estate.

Rebecca Jason
Partner, Winckworth Sherwood

Rebecca is a highly experienced finance lawyer in social housing, public sector and real estate finance. Rebecca’s practice includes all forms of lending arrangements involving clearing banks, institutional investors and public sector bodies on both a secured and an unsecured basis. Rebecca has acted for clearing banks in connection with refinancings and new lending on both investment and development LMA-based facilities, as well as for various public sector funders (such as local authorities and government departments) on the refinancing of existing loans, and the provision of new bespoke development loan facilities to unlock sites for building residential properties and the regeneration of key city centres. She also acts as borrower-side counsel for real estate clients in respect of their funding arrangements for investment property portfolios as well as single asset SPVs, and where required liaising with registered agents and family offices in a wide range of jurisdictions (including Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man and the British Virgin Islands).

Emily Joyce
Partner and Business Development, SoMax

Aisling Jubb
Social Housing Lead, Workday

Aisling leads the Social Housing function at Workday helping Housing Associations streamline and optimize their HR and Finance processes in the cloud and generate significant savings using AI. She advises organisations on how to harness Workday’s unique capabilities of merging operational Housing data with financial analysis to generate unprecedented insights to manage and optimize spend. Before joining Workday, Aisling worked as a consultant advising local government and wider public service organisations preparing for and implementing ERP solutions – from initial business case development to effective business transformation.

Shakie Kawuyu
Director, Data and Analytics, RSM UK

Tariq Kazi
Group Treasurer, Peabody

Professor Adam Kramer
Director, Client Security Advisory Service, Barclays

Since joining Barclays in 2018, Adam has led the development of the bank’s Cyber Incident Response, Incident Management & Insider Threat programmes. He now advises client boards, c-suite and treasury teams on the cyber & fraud threat landscape, including emerging trends & practical advice on how to govern cyber risk.
Adam began his career in law enforcement, notably as a Detective within the UK Police Central eCrime Unit and progressing through to Chief Technologist in the UK National Crime Agency, National Cyber Crime Unit. Adam is also an Honorary Professor of Cyber Security at the University of Manchester.

Kate Krokou
Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer, The Hyde Group

Kate is responsible for delivering improvements to our business and ensuring we have long term plans to support our customers. She leads our strategic planning, transformation, customer engagement and communications teams, and ensures we listen to and act on customer feedback, when developing our strategic plans, to ensure they meet customers’ needs. Kate’s worked in the sector for 20 years and was previously Head of Strategy and Business Intelligence. More recently, she was Partnerships and Regeneration Director, leading Hyde’s work with public organisations, including Brighton & Hove City Council, to build more affordable homes and regenerate estates. Kate has a longstanding interest in public policy and in using research and feedback from customers to improve housing services.

Dr Amrita Kulka
Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Warwick

Amrita Kulka joined the University of Warwick as an Assistant Professor of Economics after completing her PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a postdoc at New York University. She studies how government intervention impacts spatial inequality, with a particular emphasis on housing supply, housing affordability, and location decisions and has written several peer-reviewed articles related to these questions. She is also a Co-principal investigator on the “Where To Build” project, which builds a unique database on housing demand, housing construction, and planning in Great Britain to understand the most salient spatial barriers to housing supply and affordability. The project has received grant funding from Research England and the Nuffield Foundation. She has discussed her research on the impact of housing regulations on supply and affordability as expert advisor with stakeholders interested in zoning reform in the US and with government departments and local authorities interested in planning reform in the UK.

Ross Lavery
Senior Solution Architect and Manager – Sage Intacct, PwC UK

Ross Lavery is a Senior Solution Architect & Manager within the Sage Intacct practice at PwC UK. Since joining PwC in 2018, Ross has specialised in delivering Sage Intacct finance system implementations and transformation programmes, including housing associations. He works closely with finance leaders to design and implement scalable, cloud-based financial solutions that support regulatory reporting, improve financial control and drive operational efficiency. Ross’s expertise spans finance process optimisation, system configuration and user adoption across complex, multi-entity operating models.

Julie Layton
Chief Executive, Advance

Julie was appointed as Chief Executive of Advance in 2015, having worked for the organisation for a number of years as Director of Resources and Deputy Chief Executive. Julie is a qualified accountant and a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing. She has extensive experience in the social housing sector. She is a strategic, visionary leader who is passionate about improving the lives of vulnerable people and believes the non-profit sector has a big part to play in delivering change. Her philosophy is to embed a collaborative and open culture within the organisation and to inspire and empower people to perform well. Julie has developed partnership working initiatives to ensure Advance can work with others to provide more high quality support options to customers to enable them to live the lives they choose. In 2017 Julie was appointed to the Board of the Association of Mental Health Providers and is keen to take an active role in shaping the future of the Association and the mental health sector.

Louise Leaver
Partner, Bevan Brittan

Louise is a banking and finance lawyer specialising in housing finance and serves as the joint head of the housing practice. With over 20 years of experience acting for both borrowers and lenders, she represents a diverse range of clients, including corporate borrowers, registered providers, charitable entities, property developers, banks, and institutional investors. Louise’s expertise encompasses all types of loan agreements, security documentation, intercreditor and security trust arrangements, swap transactions, and capital market issues. She is particularly skilled in supporting and advising clients in the social housing sector to raise funds, whether through short-term revolving credit facilities or longer-term private placements and bond issuance. Additionally, she provides advice on development finance, acquisition finance, off-balance sheet delivery models, joint venture arrangements, and restructurings. Louise is recognised for delivering commercial and pragmatic advice and for leveraging her experience with borrowers and lenders to develop and document innovative funding structures.

Amanda Leonard
Associate Director, Housemark

Amanda has worked extensively across the sector with Boards and Executive teams, improving organisation strategic planning and performance. She has led resident led co designed governance structure changes and multiple mergers. She also led on the Clarion merger and works with organisations on transformation and growth. Leading the first post Grenfell resident engagement event to consult on the Social Housing White Paper, working with the Cabinet Office and Housing Minister, Amanda is an influential thought leader.

Sandy Livingstone
Chief Executive Officer, Onward Homes

Sandy joined Onward in 2017 and is a Chartered Surveyor with extensive experience in all aspects of the housing sector, having previously been a Director in Savills’ Housing Consultancy division. He also brings a wide range of experience in property management, from the higher education, transport, healthcare, and commercial development sectors.

Emma Lomas
Director – VAT, BDO

Emma is a Director in the North West VAT department and leads the provision of VAT services to the Not for Profit sector in the North for BDO. Emma is an ACCA qualified accountant and trained working in a multi-disciplinary role within a small accountancy practice. Post-qualification Emma specialised in VAT and has worked in mid-size firm's for over 12 years. In this role Emma has developed a broad range of experience in the public, private and Not for Profit sectors. ​​In the NfP sector, she has primarily worked with social hosing providers, care providers and charities.

Janette Longstaff
Chief Finance Officer, Bernicia Group

Janette has held her current position since 2019, and has been with Bernicia for over 18 years. She is a fellow of the Association of Chartered Accountants and has responsibility for Finance, ICT, Risk and Assurance across the Group. Janette is the Chair of the NHF North East Finance Practitioners Group

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.

Nathan Mallows
Director of Finance, People and Change, Coastline Housing

Nathan is the Director of Finance and ICT at Coastline Housing in Cornwall since January 2016. Prior to that, he worked as a consultant for 4 years supporting various charities, start-ups and Housing providers. Nathan has worked in and around housing for nearly 20 years and been fortunate to be involved with amazing organisations of all shapes and sizes supporting communities and delivering much need new homes predominately across London and the surrounding counties. Nathan is also the current chair of the National Housing Federation’s Finance Policy Advisory Group which exists to inform and respond to the NHF’s wider policy agenda with particular reference to financial implications for its members.

Mark Mayler
Chief Financial Officer, 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.

Rachel McGoff
Head of Financial Accounting and Reporting, The Guinness Partnership

Paul McGrady
Chief Financial Officer, Magenta Living

Paul is the CFO of Magenta Living based in Birkenhead. Unusually he spent 2 years on the board there before ‘crossing the table’ to become a member of the exec team, which gives him a unique insight into the workings of the company. Prior to Magenta he spent 10 years working for housing associations and has a previous background in local government becoming the Finance Director at a unitary county council where he was also head of housing and property. At Magenta he has taken the lead on all things AI and has recently completed an AI Mastery course with Wirral AI Academy.

Cris McGuinness
Chief Financial Officer, Riverside

Cris McGuinness has been Chief Financial Officer at Riverside since 2018 and Chair of ClwydAlyn in North Wales since 2023. She began her career with KPMG in Liverpool and has over twenty years’ experience as a Finance Director and CFO at organisations including The Guinness Partnership, Serco and Transport for Greater Manchester. At Riverside, Cris leads all financial and treasury activity and previously oversaw the Development portfolio for six years. She is a committed advocate for equity, diversity and inclusion and works closely with staff networks to champion EDI across the organisation.

Helen Meehan
Chief Financial Officer, Home Group

Helen is the Chief Financial Officer at Home Group. She joined Home Group in 2015 and has held a number of roles including Director of Finance, before becoming their Chief Financial Officer in 2022. Before arriving at Home Group Helen was with PwC, where she oversaw the delivery of high-quality, value-added risk and assurance work in the housing and education sectors.

Prof David Miles CBE
Member, Budget Responsibility Committee, OBR and Professor of Financial Economics, Imperial College, London

David Miles is Professor of Financial Economics at Imperial College, London. He has had previous academic positions at Birkbeck College, London and at Oxford University. He has undergraduate and masters degrees from Oxford University and a PhD from the University of London.
He is a member of the Budget Responsibility Committee of the Office for Budget Responsibility, where he takes the lead on economic analysis. He is a member of the Commission of the Central Bank of Ireland. He was a member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England between May 2009 and September 2015. As an economist he has focused on the interaction between financial markets and the wider economy. He was Chief UK Economist at Morgan Stanley from October 2004 to May 2009. In 2004 he led a government review of the UK mortgage market. In 2018 he completed a review for the UK Treasury on reference prices of UK government bonds. He has been an advisor to the IMF and to the reserve Bank of New Zealand. He is a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research and at the CESIFO research institute in Munich.

Caroline Moore
Chief Financial Officer, Abri

Caroline is Chief Financial Officer of Abri Group, and a member of the Board. Caroline manages the Finance, Treasury & Financial Planning and Safety& Resilience directorates, Caroline also oversees compliance with legal and regulatory obligations. Caroline was previously CFO at Yarlington, and has also held several non-Exec roles, including Chair of the Audit Committee at Yeovil NHS Trust, and the Employers’ elected member on the Somerset Local Government Pension Fund Committee. Caroline joined Yarlington from PricewaterhouseCoopers. She also spent an early part of her career in financial regulation at the Housing Corporation. Caroline is a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing.

Yvonne Moore
Head of Resilience Solutions, Zurich

Yvonne Moore brings nearly three decades of experience in the insurance industry, including more than 25 years with Zurich. Her career spans diverse underwriting and leadership roles—from London Market and technical lines to operational and portfolio management—always with a strong focus on people and performance. A recognised expert in Public Sector Insurance, Yvonne has spent much of her career at Zurich Municipal, where she guided customers through complex risks and helped build resilience across all lines of business and sectors. Today, as Head of Zurich Resilience Solutions UK, Yvonne leads initiatives that empower organisations to understand and manage risk in an increasingly volatile world, driving innovative strategies to strengthen resilience for the future.

Andrew Morton
Chief Executive Officer, MORhomes

Andrew is Chief Executive Officer of MORhomes, the sector's own bond aggregator, set up by housing associations with a unique, innovative, market-leading, "covenant-light" proposition, to issue bonds in the market and lend the funds back-to-back exclusively to Housing Associations. A qualified chartered accountant with over 30 years’ experience in financial services, firstly in practice with one of the Big Firms followed by a range of different strategic, financial and commercial / business leadership roles with Barclays. More recently he ran his own advisory business alongside a portfolio of Chair and Non-Executive Director roles.

Jas Nahl
Solicitor, Anchor

Jasdeep has worked in the social housing sector for ten years with a focus on property charging. She has experience acting for both Lenders and RP Borrowers in a variety of transactions. She has most recently joined the in-house team at Anchor and taken on the position of Co-Chair of the Property Finance Working Group.

Charlotte Norman
Group Chief Executive and Chair, Mosscare St Vincent's Housing Group and Northen Housing Consortium

Charlie has worked in the sector for over 30 years, across the North West and in Vancouver, Canada, with a background in community and co-operative development, neighbourhood management and regeneration. She is honoured to be Group CEO of Mosscare St Vincent’s Housing Group and committed to helping create more homes people can afford, more opportunity and better life chances for all. Charlie is on the Board of Directors at Bolton Community Homes and Vice Chair of the Manchester Housing Partnership. Working with a wide range of partners, including the GM Housing Providers, she is a passionate campaigner for issues affecting housing, wealth and health inequality, supported housing, independent living and homelessness. Charlie is also a firm believer in building a great work environment where people can flourish with a focus on flexibility, agility and creativity.

David Olusoga
Historian, Writer, Presenter

Maria Organ
Executive Director of Finance, West Kent Housing Association

Maria has over 15 years’ experience working in several senior finance roles across housing and the wider public sector, including local government, regeneration, and health. She is responsible for business planning, treasury and financial management, rents & service charges, procurement, risk management, governance, communications and human resources. Maria has held senior roles including Deputy Director of Finance for Raven Housing Trust and has been a trustee of several charities, most recently Croydon Plus Credit Union. Maria is a qualified accountant and member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy.

Ade Osunsanmi
Head of Procurement, 2Rivers Housing Association

Ade is a procurement and supply chain leader with mechanical engineering background. Her over 20 years’ experience spans various sectors including Aerospace, Automotive, Food, Higher Education, and the last 10 years within the UK housing sector. Her experience afforded the opportunity to make strategic contributions while honing her commercial skills, building effective link between operational and strategic procurement. From 2016-2023, Ade worked at Sanctuary Housing Association -an organisation with over hundred thousand properties under management, covering wide range of housing types from supported living to student accommodation and care homes. She led projects on environmental sustainability, focusing on developing and delivery of procurement strategies for indirect facilities management and fleet delivering millions of pounds worth of savings. She then went on to work for CHIC Ltd as the Head of Procurement of a consortium of over 280 housing associations, supported on the award of Construction Gold Standard by Constructing Excellence to CHIC and delivered on multi million pounds frameworks for Development, Legal Services and supported her team on delivery of other framework agreement compliantly. She also implemented effective resource planning framework for the team to ensure they can meet development and facility management needs across organisations with very different requirements and priorities. She is Procurement Act 2023 superuser and recently joins the Church Development Agency as a non-Executive director. Ade is passionate about matters pertaining to racial equality, mentoring the next generation of procurement professionals, process efficiency, consistency of policies, transparency within the Supply chain and how environmental, social and financial sustainability are ingrained in what we do and how we do them.

Rob Parkes
Executive Director of Housing and Governance, Yorkshire Housing

Rob is a values-led finance executive with two decades of experience across commercial and housing sectors. As Executive Director of Finance and Governance at Yorkshire Housing, he combines deep expertise in treasury, transformation, and governance with a pragmatic, strategic mindset. Rob is known for building trusted relationships, championing innovation, and driving impact through clear communication and purpose-driven leadership.

Mary Parsons
Regeneration and Partnerships Director, Lovell

Mary has over 25 years’ experience in the development, construction and regeneration industry; working across the private, registered provider and consultancy sectors. She has been involved in some of the largest housing-led regeneration programmes in the UK working across the private and housing association sectors. Mary is Trustee and Chair of the Town & Country Planning Association and a Trustee of MOBIE, an educational charity established by George Clarke to promote innovation in housing.

Yogeta Partridge
Independent Consultant

Yogeta has been in the housing sector for almost two decades. She is a solicitor by trade, who started working with the sector whilst at a main sector law firm – acting on behalf of housing associations and lenders using properties to secure against debt. She then had an opportunity to do a 6 month secondment at L&Q – which turned into a 13 year career. Whilst at L&Q, Yogeta created and embedded a robustly governed thread that flowed through the lifecycle of the homes from land to development through to treasury to optimise future financial opportunities – including the granular detail on legal ownership for L&Q’s entities. For the wider sector, Yogeta created and led two working groups to encourage greater collaboration and open forums to discuss and overcome obstacles, identify solutions and share best practices. These two working groups, ‘Legal Treasury Group’ for housing associations and the connected group ‘Property Finance Working Group’ with law firms and valuers, continue to strongly benefit the sector. Yogeta’s passion to use her expertise and skillset to help more housing associations and benefit the wider sector led her to create her own consultancy, Rydeo Consulting, in 2023. Through Rydeo, Yogeta is currently working with housing associations as a consultant to Executive teams, carrying out independent reviews of existing processes and procedures to identify and embed efficiencies, and using her expertise as a resource to project manage transactions whilst creating and embedding proactive strategies to reduce the ‘reactive nature’ of these transactions. Yogeta is also providing her expertise, through Rydeo, to other organisations to identify wider sector solutions to some of the many challenges.

Will Perry
Director of Strategy, Regulator of Social Housing

Will is Director of Strategy at the Regulator of Social Housing, where he is responsible for developing corporate strategy, business intelligence and regulatory policy. He is also responsible for the Regulator’s relationships with the funding markets and the regulation of for-profit providers. Will is a qualified chartered accountant, was until recently a non-executive board member of The Housing Finance Corporation.

Rajiv Peter
Non Executive Director, Golding Homes

Rajiv Peter, an accomplished tech leader, brings extensive board and executive experience across sectors. Currently CIO at Notting Hill Genesis, he has led cloud transformations and pioneered the use of AI, IoT, and cybersecurity solutions to keep organizations innovative and secure. With over 15 years of leadership in scaling tech start-ups, he also holds non-executive roles, including Chairman of an international software startup and board member of a charity. Early in his career, Rajiv worked on national digital projects in government, shaping digital standards for English local authorities. He consistently leverages his expertise to challenge the status quo and drive impactful business solutions.

Richard Petty
Head of Residential Valuation, JLL

Richard Petty is a Chartered Surveyor and Head of UK Residential Valuation at JLL, with responsibility for the firm’s Residential Valuation teams across the country, including Affordable Housing. The JLL teams cover the full range of residential property, including prime and ‘super prime’ homes, PRS, build to rent (both multi and single family), development schemes and investment portfolios of every scale. Richard has 38 years’ professional experience, with the last 29 years principally focused on affordable housing. Outside JLL, he is a Board member at Watford Community Housing Trust, Chair of Clarendon Living Limited, and a Board member of The Riverside Group. He has also held NED roles at Richmond Housing Partnership, Anchor Hanover Group and Dolphin Living Limited.

Catherine Phillips
Assistant Director of Finance, Wythenshawe Community Housing Group

Catherine Phillips is the Assistant Director of Finance at Wythenshawe Community Housing Group (WCHG). She is responsible for finance, income recovery and financial inclusion teams. She started work in an accountancy practice auditing and supporting many not for profit organisations and housing associations. There followed a number of roles in the third and public sectors including a charity, an NGO, Register Providers and a university. Catherine has worked at 3 Registered providers, and been a Board member at another. Catherine has been at WCHG for the last few years. Catherine chairs the North West National Federation of Housing Finance Group and is FD for JV North, a partnership of 13 RPs to receive Homes England Funding. Catherine has a passion for making money go further for the customer and the organisation; therefore making good VFM decisions. As part of the new leadership team at WCHG, Catherine has enjoyed driving change and seeing results.”

Carla Platell
Head of Service Charges, LiveWest

Carla Platell is Head of Service Charges at LiveWest, leading on service charge strategy and transformation across a diverse housing portfolio. With over 15 years’ experience in the sector, she has worked across leasehold, supported, and rented housing, developing a strong focus on clarity, fairness, and resident understanding. Carla is passionate about demystifying service charges and making financial information more accessible to both colleagues and customers. She currently oversees LiveWest’s service charge improvement programme, bringing together systems, data, and people to deliver a more transparent and trusted approach.

Lisa Poole
Head of Procurement, whg

Lisa brings 20 years of regulated procurement experience, including 12 years in housing (Orbit, Bromford) and eight years at Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council. She is a chartered member of CIPS and a Cabinet Office Procurement Act 2023 Advanced Practitioner.

Julia Poulter
Head of Social Housing, Crowe

Julia leads the national social housing team and has over 20 years’ experience of auditing and advising a range of social housing providers as well as a mix of charities, social purpose and commercial organisations. Julia has also carried out advisory projects such as technical accounting advice and advisory reviews in areas such as reserves, efficiency and cost optimisation, structure and governance and due diligence. She has a keen interest in technical matters and training in the sector and represents Crowe as Technical Advisor to the Housing SORP Working Party, she regularly trains staff and clients on key sector matters, including accounting, risk, governance and Audit Committee responsibilities. In a voluntary capacity Julia is Chair of a homelessness charity providing housing advice, support and hosted accommodation. Julia is also a registered speaker for schools, regularly speaking to young people about routes into accountancy, apprenticeships and interview skills.

Emma Richman
Board Member, First Choice Homes Oldham

Emma is an award winning housing professional with a career in housing that spans over 27 years, she is currently the Director of Operations at Peaks and Plains Housing Trust and is also an Independent Non Exec at First Choice Homes Oldham. Emma is a qualified Architect and Building Surveyor and is currently a Trustee of the Pankhurst Centre in Manchester. Emma is a previous Chair of the North West Branch of Women in Property and has been on their committee for the last 10 years. She also won Woman of the Year at the 2018 Woman in Housing Awards.

Ben Rick
Chief Commercial Officer and Deputy Chief Executive, The Housing Finance Corporation

Ben Rick joined The Housing Finance Corporation in 2024 as Chief Financial Officer and now serves as Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Commercial Officer. He has held senior trading and portfolio roles at Lehman Brothers, UBS, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. In 2012, Ben co-founded Social and Sustainable Capital (SASC), where he served as Chief Executive Officer and established the organisation as a prominent lender to charities and social housing providers. Following his departure from SASC in 2023, he provided advisory services to Lloyds Bank on social housing matters before joining The Housing Finance Corporation. He sits on the SASC board, serves on the Homewards national expert panel, and advises Crisis on housing supply strategy.

Emily Roberts
Assistant Manager – Employment Taxes, BDO

Emily is an Employment Taxes Assistant Manager in our Global Employer Services team in the Northwest. Emily has over seven years experience working in tax and has supported clients with a range of employment tax matters throughout her career. Her expertise spans across areas such as Construction Industry Scheme (CIS), Off-payroll working/IR35, and National Minimum Wage (NMW) compliance. She has a broad portfolio which includes not-for-profit organisations, including a number of social housing clients.

Will Roberts
Director, Venn Partners

Mike Roche
Director, Housing Treasury, Savills Financial Consultants

Mike Roche joined the company in 2011 and is a director of Savills Financial Consultants, the treasury and funding advisory team within the housing division of Savills. With more than 25 years of experience in advising clients in the housing association field, Mike's knowledge and expertise is well-known in the industry. He works with the team to give create innovative funding solutions for both lenders and investors.

David Roden
Chief Financial Officer, Cobalt Housing

David joined Cobalt from Progress Housing Group, where he worked as Financial Services Director for five years. Prior to working in social housing, he was part of the Big Four accounting and professional services firms and worked for FTSE 100 developer St Modwen Properties. David oversees the finance, treasury and procurement functions at Cobalt, working closely with the Board and Senior Management Team to ensure that they manage finances effectively and secure the funding needed to deliver their corporate plan and achieve the maximum impact for their customers and communities.

Matthew Rose
Director of Treasury, Bromford Flagship

Matthew joined Bromford in 2024 to lead Treasury. He has led a number of bank, private placement and bond financings and a new EMTN programme and SFF. He has refreshed the team and been heavily involved in planning actions for the mergers with Flagship and LiveWest. Matthew is a qualified Chartered Accountant and Corporate Treasurer, and led Treasury and Tax teams at Royal Mail, De La Rue, Taylor Wimpey and BT. His career has included many high profile transactions including the debut bank syndicate, public bond and credit rating for Royal Mail post IPO, and the subsequent award by the ACT of Treasury Team of the Year in 2015.

Helen Rourke
Chief Financial Officer, St Mungo’s

Helen joined St Mungo’s in 2024 where leads the Finance, IT and Governance and Compliance functions. Helen is a chartered accountant who spent most of her career to date working in the social housing sector, holding a number of senior, executive and non-executive roles. Helen is also a member of the Audit Committee of a large housing association in the North West of England, and volunteers as a co-ordinator at a Street Kitchen supporting homeless and vulnerable people in Manchester.

Kelly Saban
Manager Treasury Markets, Southern Housing

Kelly is a senior treasury professional specialising in capital markets, investor relations and sustainable finance. She joined Southern Housing in 2020, where she is responsible for bond issuance activity, ongoing engagement with investors, lenders and rating agencies. She established the organisation’s EMTN programme, Sustainable Finance Framework and oversees allocation and impact reporting.

Sayheng Sam
Director of Finance – Monitoring and Reporting, L&Q

Sayheng is an ACA-qualified accountant with a background in audit combined with private construction. He is responsible for providing accounting services that meet statutory and group reporting requirements, while safeguarding long-term financial sustainability by assessing the impact of key decisions, risks, and changes in the operating environment, and driving operational improvements across the business.

Paul Sandersfield
Director of ICT, Bernicia Group

Initially starting an audit and finance career, Paul moved into IT and has worked in a variety of IT roles in the public sector for 34 years and within social housing specifically for over 23 of them. His experience includes many major IT related projects, information security and cyber, IT related standards and best practice, and has a passion for data management and governance. He has worked at Bernicia since September 2023 and leads the IT function.

Natalie Singh
Partner, Trowers and Hamlins

Natalie is a nationally recognised affordable housing finance lawyer and an acknowledged market leader. Natalie has extensive experience in advising housing providers on all aspects of their funding needs including syndicated and bi-lateral borrowing, capital market issues, ESG, green and sustainability-linked finance, intra group lending, hedging arrangements and security portfolio matters. Natalie also provides strategic advice in relation to large scale restructurings, funding and treasury matters connected with mergers, treasury vehicle structures and group reorganisations. Natalie also sits as a Non Executive Director on the Board of Habitare Homes, a for profit registered provider established by MAN Group plc.

Mark Smith
Chief Financial Officer, Notting Hill Genesis

Mark Smith is the Chief Financial Officer at Notting Hill Genesis since early 2024. With a turnover of more than £700 million, NHG is one of London’s largest housing associations and provides homes to more than 130,000 Londoners. Mark has significant experience across financial and operational management, cost transformation, process improvement, and business change. Before NHG, he held the same role at NHS Property Services, which provides landlord and property services for 2,700 NHS buildings across England, with an annual income of £750 million and 6,000 direct employees. Prior to 2019, Mark spent more than 10 years at BT, working in a variety of senior financial, risk, and operational roles across different parts of the business.

Tanya Srikandan
Board Member, Women in Social Housing

Tanya Srikandan is a senior finance leader with extensive experience spanning strategic planning, treasury, procurement and transformation across the social housing and charity sectors. She has led multi-disciplinary teams and delivered long-term financial models that enable sustainable growth, organisational resilience and resident-focused investment. Tanya serves as Treasurer of Ekaya Housing Association and sits on the national board of WISH (Women in Social Housing), where she champions diverse leadership and inclusion across the sector. Passionate about community and positive change, Tanya is now Assistant Director of Finance and Procurement at Housing Solutions, whilst also advocating for flexible, balanced careers and successfully combining leadership with life as a working parent.

Edith Stokes
Associate Consultant, Housing Diversity Network

Edith is the founder of ECS Consulting, an Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) consultancy that specialises in championing equity within the housing sector. She is an Associate Consultant with the Housing Diversity Network (HDN) and has previously served as Interim Director at Leadership 2025, where she provided strategic leadership and hands-on expertise. Edith also works with organisations beyond the housing sector, including the University of Oxford, bringing a cross-sector perspective to her work. Through her consultancy and advisory work, Edith supports organisations to embed inclusive practice, strengthen accountability, and deliver meaningful, positive outcomes for the communities they serve.

Matthew Taylor
Senior Manager – Corporate Tax, BDO

Matthew is a Senior Manager in BDO's North-West Tax team, working across a mixed portfolio of entities with a particular focus on the Not-for-Profit sector. Matthew has worked closely with a wide range of housing associations over the past 12 years, helping them to manage their annual Corporation Tax compliance cycle efficiently, whilst also advising on a wide range of sector-relevant issues. Matthew regularly delivers training sessions and updates on key Not-for-Profit tax principles, and support BDO's national Not-for-Profit team in engaging with HMRC on emerging issues affecting the sector. Matthew also works closely with BDO’s Not-for-Profit audit team to ensure that key tax risks for the sector are understood, identified and tested appropriately throughout each audit.

Kam Tesse
Assistant Director of Finance and Treasury, MHS Homes Group

Kam has worked at mhs homes since April 2005. She was the Head of Finance until February 2016, when she became Assistant Director of Finance, Treasury and Systems. Kam is responsible for managing our Finance teams.

Agnieszka Thakur
Finance Director, Financial Control and Operations, Peabody

Agnieszka Thakur Finance Director of Operations at Peabody and a Fellow of Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, with over 20 years in the social housing sector. Previously the Director of Financial Services at Catalyst Housing, she played a crucial role in successful merger activities involving Aldwyck Housing and Rosebery Housing. Passionately involved in technical matters, Agnieszka is a member of the Housing SORP Working Party.

Jess Tomlinson
Managing Director, Head of Real Estate and Housing, Lloyds

Jess has more than 20 years’ experience in real estate and housing, gained in banking, private equity and law firms. Jess joined Lloyds Bank in August 2024 as Managing Director, Head of Real Estate & Housing. The team is fundamental to Lloyds’s purpose of Helping Britain Prosper and covers a broad range of clients and segments, from leading housebuilders, hotels and many of the UK’s social housing associations through to regional property developers and listed real estate multinationals and investors. Prior to joining Lloyds, Jess spent 10 years with Barclays in a range of real estate leadership roles and latterly as Head of Public Sector. Before Barclays Jess worked at Blackstone, RBS and Allen and Overy.

John Wallace
Director of Procurement, Clarion Housing Group

John joined Clarion Housing Group as the Director of Procurement in 2021, having previously worked as Procurement Director for the Metropolitan Thames Valley housing association. In addition, he is Chief Officer for the National Housing Procurement Association. John began his career as a laboratory assistant before becoming a qualified Master Brewer. Having spent 10 years in brewing production, John moved onto various procurement roles in the industry prior to spending two years in the food industry working for one of the country’s leading chilled food producers. In 2006 he joined the NHS, being involved in the growth and development of two regional procurement organisations before joining Anchor in the role of Head of Procurement and Purchasing.

Jonathan Walters
Deputy Chief Executive, Regulator of Social Housing

Having previously been at Ernst and Young working in social housing consultancy, Jonathan has been at the Regulator since 2004. He has worked across the organisation and has extensive experience in dealing with funders, government and housing associations.

Les Warren
Executive Director, Reside with Progress

Les Warren is Executive Director (RWP & Growth) at the Progress Housing Group. He leads the Group’s supported living division, RWP (Reside with Progress). RWP is one of the leading providers of supported living to adults with learning disabilities and autistic people in the UK. He has held senior positions in social housing and the wider for-profit property sector. Les is also a Chartered Accountant and holds an MBA from the University of Cape Town.

Mark Washer
Group Chief Executive, SNG

Mark is the Group Chief Executive Officer of SNG and an SNG Board member. Prior to his appointment, he was the CEO at Sovereign from 2018 until the merger with Network Homes in 2023. With extensive experience in the housing sector, he has been Chief Financial Officer at Clarion Housing Group and has been Vice Chair of the National Housing Federation (NHF). Mark is a trustee of Leadership 2025, a charity developing Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) leadership in the housing sector.

Piers Williamson
Chair, Sustainability for Housing

Piers Williamson was appointed the chair of Sustainability for Housing (SfH) in September 2024. Piers stepped down as chief executive of The Housing Finance Corporation (THFC) in 2024, the leading bond aggregator for the social housing sector, after 22 years in charge. During his time at THFC, the group’s loan book grew to more than £8bn and the organisation created its sustainable bond framework as well as THFC Sustainable Finance, a vehicle aimed at helping housing associations tackle net zero targets. The aggregator also became the first lender in the sector to publish an ESG report.

Catherine Wilson
Director, Housing Valuation, Savills

Leading the Savills Affordable Housing Valuation team of circa 30 RICS Registered Valuers, Catherine has over 16 years experience providing valuations for a range of funders and borrowers across the UK. Specialising in Loan Security valuations, Catherine has worked on some of the largest own name bond issues in the sector and leads a team of specialist valuers providing valuations for acquisition, disposal, loan security, privatisation, and investment portfolios, as well as strategic property advice to residential and commercial occupiers. The Savills Affordable Housing provides a range of strategic and property consultancy advice to housing associations, local authorities, For Profit Registered Providers, funders, investors and developers.

Guy Woodroffe
Head of Policy, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero

Gareth Yeoman-Evans
Group Executive Director of Resources, Heydn

As an experienced finance professional, Gareth has worked in the housing, care, and support sector for over 20 years. As the Group Executive Director of Resources for Hedyn, Gareth is a champion of innovation and continuous improvement, with a focus on cost efficiency, quality outcomes, and robust governance. He works closely with the Board to shape and strengthen Hedyn’s financial, HR, risk management, assurance, value for money, and governance frameworks. Gareth brings extensive governance experience at Board level, with a strong ability to interpret complex information to support effective decision-making and drive continuous improvement.