Helia Ebrahimi
Economics Correspondent, Channel 4

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.

Nabeel Alhassan
Financial Planning Manager, Accent Group

Nick Atkin
Chief Executive, Yorkshire Housing

Nick has a track record of leading organisations through transformational change, driving performance improvement, with a focus on maximising the untapped potential from businesses and people. Born and brought up in Doncaster he joined Yorkshire Housing in 2019. Since this time, he’s delivered transformational change throughout the business to meet the future opportunities and challenges. Nick has previously introduced a fully flexible/ remote working approach. He also led the move to 90% of customer led transactions to be delivered through online self-service channels. He is a keen advocate of innovation and uses digital as an enabler to drive fundamental change in how businesses operate. He is also a disruptor in the ‘future of work’ debate and has been paperless for 19 years.

Gemma Bell
Partner, Devonshires

Gemma advises on a range of areas including social housing regulatory, charity law, governance, company and community benefit society law, corporate restructuring projects, joint ventures, stock transfers and mergers and acquisitions. Gemma acts for a range of clients nationally including housing associations, local authorities, charities and social enterprises.

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.

John Bristow
Senior Vice President of Customer Success, Plentific

Marie Chadwick
Policy Leader, National Housing Federation

Marie leads the National Housing Federation’s policy work on supply – from the Affordable Homes Programme right through to Voluntary Right to Buy and everything in between. Marie’s background is in policy and public affairs, both in the housing and charity sectors.

Sarah Coles
Head of Safety and Improvement Finance, Innovative Funding, Welsh Government

Ilona Cristea
Assistant Finance Director, Peabody

Stewart Davison
Board Member, Elim Housing

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

Edward Farnsworth
Deputy Group Finance Director, 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.

Rosemary Farrar
Chief Financial Officer, Platform Housing Group

Rosemary Farrar, Chief Financial Officer Platform Housing: Rosemary joined Platform in March 2020. Prior to this she carried out a number of interim change roles in London and the South-East, Liverpool, Glasgow and the North-East over four years including supporting associations in regulatory difficulty and supervising transformation. Rosemary trained as a Chartered Accountant with PWC and has been working in housing for nearly forty years. She has been CFO of a number of associations including Notting Hill (now Notting Hill Genesis), Circle (now Clarion) and Southern. Rosemary has carried out a number of non-executive roles on the Boards of housing associations, schools and not-for-profit companies. She currently sits on the Boards of Soho HA, Oxford City Council Housing Ltd and SBHA.

Mike Figg
Head of Social Housing, Barclays

Mike is Head of Social Housing at Barclay’s, leading a national team of Relationship Directors serving over 200 Registered Providers throughout the UK. Mike has over 20 years of experience in Financial Services, predominantly at HSBC where he started in debt origination but spent the last 14 years focused on relationship coverage. His last role at HSBC was Deputy Head of Housing, part of the leadership of a team covering Social and Affordable Housing, traditional housebuilders, private rental sector and student accommodation.

Alison Gray
Head of Social Housing Debt Finance, Barclays

Mike Grimditch
Director of Financial Strategy, Greensquare Accord

Sam Grix
Partner, Devonshires

Samantha was called to the Bar in October 2008 at the Inner Temple and cross-qualified as a solicitor in November 2010. She started her career at Devonshires Solicitors as a Paralegal and was invited to remain post-qualification due to her proven ability and great relationships with clients. Samantha was promoted to Partner in April 2022.

Zoe Kleinman
Technology Editor, BBC

Zoe, a leading technology journalist and presenter with a real passion for all things tech and over ten years of broadcasting experience. From cybersecurity and hacking to artificial intelligence and driverless cars, she brings tech stories to a mainstream global audience of millions across international radio, TV and online outlets including Radio 4’s Today programme and BBC World News. She also travels the world in search of the Next Big Thing – flying selfie-taking drones in the Nevada desert, spending the night in a house full of robots, being turned into a human beatbox, climbing Mount Everest (using Virtual Reality, in a hotel room in Las Vegas) and trying to survive for 48 hours using only Bitcoin on the Isle of Man (she discovered it was easier to buy beer than breakfast). A confident and entertaining speaker who is in demand as a host, chair, panellist and lecturer, Zoe’s expertise and knowledge of the tech sector is brought to life by her engaging style.

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.

Scott Martin
Executive Director of Resources, Karbon Homes

Scott started his career with KPMG before moving into senior finance and management roles in the housebuilding sector. He spent 10 years at Barratt Homes North East as Finance Director and Managing Director before taking the position as Group Finance Director for Story Homes. Scott joined Karbon Homes in 2020 as Executive Director of Resources, responsible for finance, treasury, ICT and people and organisational development. During his time at Karbon, Scott has worked on the issue of £100m of listed loan notes and the merger of three organisations into the Karbon Group (Byker Community Trust, Leeds and Yorkshire Housing Association and South Tyneside Housing Ventures Trust), growing homes under management by 4,000 to 32,000. Scott is a member of the National Housing Federation’s Housing SORP working party, an audit committee member of Prosper Procurement Limited and governor of Teesside University.

Ian McDermott
Chief Executive, Peabody

Ian has 30 years’ experience in the housing sector. Before joining Peabody, Ian was the, CEO at Catalyst Housing, Chief Executive at Aldwyck Housing Group and Chief Operating Officer at Sanctuary Group. Ian has also held Chief Executive positions at both Shaftesbury Housing Group and Stonebridge Housing Action Trust. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing, a Chartered Surveyor and an alumnus of the Harvard Business School.

Professor Stanimira Milcheva
Professor of Real Estate Finance, University College London

Prof Stanimira Milcheva is a professor in real estate finance at UCL. She is also the director of the Affordable Housing Centre at UCL and chairs the Shared Ownership Data Initiative SODI as part of that, working closely with affordable housing stakeholders. Stani has published over 20 articles in the top real estate and finance peer-reviewed academic journals, including the Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Banking and Finance, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Journal of Housing Economics, etc. Stani is the author of the most recent report on Shared Ownership and also led the scoping study for the Affordable Homes Programme 2021-2026 for DLUHC. She has produced research for RICS, NHF, Shelter, CASE, G15, among others, and provided evidence on housing policy to the Welsh and English governments.

Priya Nair
Chief Executive, The Housing Finance Corporation (THFC)

A senior executive with over 25 years’ experience in financial services, infrastructure and housing, Priya is passionate about leveraging sustainable, long-term investment to help deliver positive economic and societal outcomes in the affordable housing sector. Before joining in March 2024, Priya was a Senior Director at abrdn in its infrastructure team. With a focus on infrastructure and housing, Priya was responsible for financing, capital raising and deal strategy across all its flagship infrastructure funds and investments. Prior to that, Priya spent over 13 years at the Royal Bank of Canada in their global private markets team and seven years at Citi. In addition to leading THFC, Priya acts as a senior advisor to organisations working across government, infrastructure and technology where she provides counsel on corporate finance, governance, risk management and investment strategies. She is a Non-Executive Director and the Chair of the Investment Committee at the Port of London Authority and a Senior Adviser to Good Governance Capital. Priya also supports several non-profit originations and charities with a focus on sport and education. She is currently a Senior Trustee of community sports charity, Sported, the UK’s largest network of community groups supporting half a million young people through the power of sport.

Richard Petty
Head of UK Residential Valuation, JLL

Richard Petty is the Head of UK Residential Valuation at JLL, with responsibility for all the residential valuation teams across the country. The Residential Valuation teams cover the full range of residential property and specialist sectors including affordable housing, prime residential, PRS, build-to-rent and strategic advisory work on residential portfolios. The JLL Residential Valuation team is made up of 120 specialist staff, based in nine cities: London, Bristol, Exeter, Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh,together giving complete, national coverage. Richard has over 37 years’ professional experience, with the last 28 years principally focussed on the affordable housing sector. He and the JLL affordable housing team advise on all aspects of the valuation of affordable housing, acting for all the lenders in the sector and for over 300 RPs, large and small, including all members of the G15; as well as leading equity investors, private developers and local authorities.

Gareth Phipps-Williams
Assistant Director, Programme Management, Affordable Housing Grants, Homes England

Arun Poobalasingam
Chief Partnerships Officer, The Housing Finance Corporation (THFC)

Arun joined THFC in 2021 as Head of Relationship Management and Business Development and is now Funding and Marketing Director. He joined from HSBC where he helped set up and then lead their Social Housing business focussing predominantly on larger housing associations. Having started his career working at Diageo, he moved to Network Rail where starting as a financial modeller he moved on to the Treasury team that raised over £20bn of debt through the Global Capital Markets during his stint. He left to join HSBC in 2007 to join their Real Estate team at an interesting time for the sector and specialised in property for most of his time there.

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.

Alessandra Raja
Business Transformation Partner, RSM UK

Mike Richardson
Partner, LCP

Mike is a partner in LCP’s social housing and not-for-profit consulting teams. He heads up LCP’s Social Housing practice and has extensive experience of advising employers who participate in the Social Housing Pension Scheme (SHPS) and the Growth Plan, both of which are part of The Pensions Trust (TPT), and who participate in the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). He is also the appointed Scheme Actuary to a scheme operated by a large housing association.

Will Roberts
Vice President, Venn Partners

Lian Rogan
Head of Financial System Analysis and Reporting, Magenta Living

Naomi Roper
Partner and Head of Banking, Capsticks

Naomi is a partner and the Head of Banking at Capsticks. Naomi specialises in social housing finance where she has years of experience acting for borrowers and lenders in the social housing sector. Naomi provides advice and guidance on social housing finance and development finance, including advising on all types of loan agreements, security and security trust arrangements, debt restructuring, complex intra-group arrangements, joint ventures, private placements, derivatives and debt capital markets transactions including own name bond issues and EMTN programmes. Naomi is also an ESG specialist working in the fields of green, social and sustainable finance and impact measurement. Naomi provides advice on green loans, social loans and sustainability linked loans and bonds. Naomi sits on the City of London Law Society’s ESG Committee.

Vicky Savage
Executive Group Director, Development and Sales, L&Q

Vicky joined L&Q in 2018 after four highly successful years as Executive Development at Network Homes. She worked the previous seven years at a senior level at Network Homes in development roles. Vicky trained as an Urban Planner, but housing was her main passion and so moved to post graduate Housing Studies at the London School of Economics. Previously Vicky has worked in a range of housing development roles for over 25 years including time at Origin Housing Group and English Churches Housing Association. At L&Q Vicky has strategic responsible for all development growth activity including JVs/partnering, estate regeneration and sales in London. Vicky is also responsible for L&Q innovative in-house construction function. L&Q have an ambitious growth target of delivering 100,000 homes in the next 10 years. Vicky leads a multi skilled expert team of circa 600 staff. Vicky is L&Q’s lead Director in the innovative Build London Partnership Project. Developing new homes for small and BME Housing Associations. Vicky is currently Chair of the London G15 Development Directors Group and plays an active role on this influential London forum. Vicky is particularly interested in achieving greater representation of women in the built environment sector and currently mentors several up and coming female development professionals.

Mona Shah
Chief Financial Officer, Amplius

Mona began her career in the media sector after qualifying as an accountant. She has over 25 years’ experience working in housing and loves working for organisations that make a difference. Mona joined Grand Union in February 2019 from Sovereign Housing Association where she was finance director for three years. Prior to that, she was at Catalyst Housing. She is also a Non-Executive Director at another housing association. Mona has also worked in media, insurance and has run her own travel business. In her current role as Executive Director of Finance and Business Services, Mona oversees the Finance, IT, Corporate Services and Governance teams.

Grant Shipley
Executive Director of Finance, Wandle Housing Association

Grant is an experienced finance director who has worked in the housing sector for over 30 years in executive, interim and consultancy roles. He has a clear focus on providing high quality management information and delivering business improvement services for clients, both directly and through his own consultancy company. He joined Wandle in 2021.

James Tarrant
Director, Savills Financial Consultants

James is a Corporate Finance and Treasury specialist. James joined Savills Financial Consultants in April 2024 from GreenSquareAccord where he was Director of Corporate Finance & Treasury for ~five years. Prior to working in the housing sector, he held senior treasury roles in insurance, funds management and banking both in Australia and the UK. James has significant experience in managing, restructuring and simplifying complex debt portfolios and acquiring and divesting real asset portfolios. James has Won or been Highly Commended at the ACT Deal of the Year Awards a number of times for a different transactions and for leading teams across different sectors.

Agnieszka Thakur
Finance Director of 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.

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.

Mark Washer
Chief Executive, Sovereign Network Group

Mark has over 25 years’ experience in the social housing sector. He joined Sovereign as CEO in June 2018, and following the merger with Network Homes on 1 October 2023, he became the inaugural group CEO for the Sovereign Network Group. Prior to this he was the CFO at Clarion for 17 years and is a chartered accountant having qualified with Deloittes. SNG has over 82,000 homes, and over 210,000 customers across London, Hertfordshire, and the south of England. Mark was formerly a Board member and vice chair of the National Housing Federation and has been involved with a number of national charities, including Citizens Advice and Stonewall. He is a Trustee of Leadership 2025, a charity developing BME leadership in the housing sector. He is also a board member of Pallant House Gallery and chairs their Finance, Audit and Risk Committee.

Suzanne Whelan
Director of Financial Reporting & MI, The Guinness Partnership

Suzanne is Director of Financial Reporting and MI at the Guinness Partnership, responsible for leading Finance and Data Analytics operations across the Group. She has over 20 years’ experience in social and supported housing sectors and has worked at Guinness since 2017.

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.

Sophie Wint
Director of Finance and Procurement, Newport City Homes