Catherine Phillips
Director of Finance (Interim), Wythenshawe Community Housing Group

Catherine Phillips is the Director of Finance (interim) 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, sits on the Finance Policy Advisory Group for the National Housing Federation and is FD for JV North, a partnership of 16 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.

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.

Jo Makinson
Chief Finance Officer, Bromford Flagship LiveWest (BFL)

Jo has held a number of finance director and chief executive roles in the health, housing and charity sectors over the past ten years. Most recently, Jo was Director of Finance and Transformation at St Monica Trust. She is particularly passionate about social housing and is a non-executive on the board at Abri. Jo started her career in London working with a social development consultancy. She then moved to Bristol and spent six years in PwC’s public sector team. During that time, Jo trained as a chartered accountant and worked alongside a range of purpose-driven organisations working to make lives better for vulnerable people and communities.

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.

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.

Rob Hardware
External Affairs Manager, National Housing Federation

Shaeen Azam
Chief Finance Officer, Golden Lane Housing

Shaeen is an accomplished Chief Finance Officer and board-level leader with extensive experience across social housing. As a Fellow of the ACCA with an MBA and treasury qualification, Shaeen specialises in financial strategy, governance, regulatory assurance, funding and organisational transformation. At Golden Lane Housing, Shaeen has strengthened financial planning and reporting, secured £20 million of funding and contributed to the organisation achieving G1/V1/C1 regulatory gradings. Shaeen also serves as a Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Risk and Audit Committee at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust. She is passionate about using sound financial leadership to help organisations become stronger, more sustainable and better able to serve their tenants and communities. Known for combining constructive challenge with an inclusive, approachable leadership style, Shaeen has a talent for making complex financial issues clear and practical.

Sharon Thomas
Chief Investment and Property Officer, Thirteen Group

Paul Edwards
Chief Executive, Delta