Afua Hirsh
Author, Documentary Maker, former Barrister

Alan Collett
Chair, A2Dominion Group

Alison Dean
Chief Executive, Great Place Housing Group

Alistair Smyth
Director of Policy and Research, National Housing Federation

Alistair has worked in the social housing sector for the last 16 years in a wide range of roles and organisations including a previous spell at the NHF from 2014 to 2017. Prior to that, he worked as a consultant on a range of neighbourhood and community empowerment projects. He also spent three years working in a customer-facing role as a Neighbourhood Manager and as Assistant Head of Neighbourhoods for Peabody. He is currently the Vice Chair of the Chartered Institute of Housing’s Policy Advisory Committee.

Amy Rees
Chief Executive, Homes England

Clare McGonigle
Chief Executive, Framework

Dr Lígia Teixeira
Chief Executive Officer, Centre for Homelessness Impact

Eddie Tuttle
Director of Policy, External Affairs and Research, CIOB

Gavin Smart
Chief Executive, Chartered Institute of Housing

Prior to becoming CEO Gavin served as both Deputy CEO and, before that, Director of Policy and Practice at the CIH. Before joining CIH Gavin worked at the National Housing Federation (NHF), latterly as Assistant Director for Research and Futures where he led the NHF’s research and analysis function, it’s future facing thinking and it’s policy work on finance and government investment. Gavin joined the NHF from a spell working for the UK civil service commissioning research and analysis into a variety of housing policy areas. He began his career as an academic researcher at the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol.

Imogen Blood
Founder and Research Director, Imogen Blood and Associates

John Johnston
Member, Housing and Employment Network North East (HENNE) and Chief Executive, Bernicia

John has over 35 years’ experience of working in the social housing sector. He is passionate about the sector and the North East region, its people and potential. Prior to becoming Chief Executive John directed all operational services, successfully developing strategy and delivering significant improvements across a wide range of directorates. He successfully led stock transfer, merger and major regeneration initiatives at Bernicia. John is a member of a range of National and Regional representative, professional and trade organisations, notably he chairs the North of Tyne and Northumberland Committees of the North East England Chamber of Commerce and is the Vice Chair of the North East Housing Partnership (NEHP). He was pivotal in setting up the Housing Employment Network North East (HENNE) and continues to be instrumental in taking the partnership forward.

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.

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.

Kelly Fowler
Chief Executive, Belong

Kieron White
Co-founder and Chief Executive, Leading AI

Laura Lazarus
Director of Home & Lifestyle Claims, Aviva

Mark Pragnell
Chair, Rural Coalition

Mark Pragnell is an economist and forecaster with 30 years’ experience of helping companies, trade associations and public bodies plan for the future, understand the implications of changing government policy, and make their case to investors, regulators and politicians. He is director of Pragmatix Advisory, a boutique research consultancy, having previously been director of strategy and consultancy at Capital Economics and managing director at Centre for Economics and Business Research. Mark has been lead author on a number of seminal studies into the economic value of social and affordable housing, and is a member of the boards of English Rural Housing Association and The Cambridgeshire Cottage Housing Society.

Martin Warhurst
Chief Financial Officer, Habinteg Housing Association

Martin has over 24 years of experience within the social housing sector, with a particular passion for accessible, lifetime homes in inclusive communities. Martin is currently the Chief Finance Officer at Habinteg Housing Association. Previously, he was the Executive Director of Resources at Wakefield District Housing Association, Chief Executive of Martin House Children’s Hospice and prior to that, an Executive Director at Isos Housing Group (now Karbon Homes) where he was Managing Director of Cestria Community Housing Association following several years as Director of Finance and Corporate Services.

He is a Chartered Accountant and has worked within the social housing audit teams at KPMG and RSM Robson Rhodes, who later merged with Grant Thornton. Martin has demonstrated his commitment to the not-for-profit sector by holding several voluntary audit committee, trustee and board positions. Currently, he is Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee at Salix Homes. In the past, Martin served full terms of office as a Board Member and Chair of the Audit Committee at Leeds Federated Housing Association and Broadacres Housing Association.

Peter Baffoe
Chair, Resident Experience Committee and Director, Peabody and South London Mission

Peter is the Director of South London Mission, a small charity based in the London Borough of Southwark and has over 20 years of experience working in community settings. In addition to his role at South London Mission, he serve as Chair of Governors at Rye Oak Primary School, a Trustee of the Maudsley Charity supporting mental health initiatives, and the Vice Chair at Peabody Housing Trust, where he also chairs the Resident Experience Committee. A passionate advocate for social justice, he hopes to help shape strategic decisions that impact housing and community wellbeing through both his day job and voluntary roles.

Professor Julienne Meyer CBE
Chair, Older People's Housing Taskforce

Professor Emerita of Nursing: Care for Older People at City, University of London, with Visiting Professorships at University of Hertfordshire and Ulster University. Since retirement in 2019, in addition to on-going research commitments, currently Chair, Older People’s Housing Taskforce, Department of Levelling Up Housingvand Communities, Non-Executive Director for Elizabeth Finn Homes Ltd, Trustee for My Home Life Charity and Research & Development Adviser, National Care Forum and National Activity Providers Association. Former Co-chair, ‘SCIE Commission on the Role of Housing on the Future of Care and Support’ (2020-2021); Commissioner, Demos Commission on Residential Care (2013-2014); Commissioner, HSJ/SERCO Commission on Care for Older People in Hospital; and Associate of the Kings Fund co-facilitating the ‘Care Home, Housing, Health and Social Care: Learning Network’ (2017-2021).

Drawing on skills as a former registered nurse and qualified teacher, uses collaborative approaches to bring about whole systems change and reflect on the lessons learnt from attempts to improve practice. Style of working is evidence-based, relationship-centred, appreciative, and action-oriented.

Worked in a variety of different settings (health and social care; general and mental health; primary, secondary, and tertiary care) and across a number of traditional boundaries (public and private; policy and practice; research and education). Best known for work with care homes, co-founded My Home Life (MHL), a collaborative initiative to promote quality of life for those who live, die, visit and work in care homes for older people. MHL has spread across the UK, Australia and Germany. In 2020, created a registered charity to help support the work of My Home Life partners (www.myhomelifecharity.org.uk).

Expertise in aged care has long been recognized internationally. Board Member (2013-2016) and Vice Chair (2016-2019) of the Global Ageing Network (international network of leaders in ageing services, housing, research, technology and design). Adjunct Professorships in Australia (University of South Australia, Griffiths University, Federation University Australia) and America (University of Wisconsin-Madison).

In 2015, awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s New Year honours contribution to Nursing and Care for Older People and named by the University of London as one of their 150 leading women (1868-2018).

Sam Dalton
Labour Party Councillor, London Bridge and West Bermondsey, Deputy Cabinet Member for Supported Housing

Sir Michael Gove
Former Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

Stephen Peacock
Chief Executive, West of England Combined Authority

Steve Loveland
Head of Clann, Clúid

Steve Partridge
Director, Head of Housing Consultancy, Affordable Housing, Savills

Steve is a senior leader and highly regarded national expert in UK housing finance with nearly 30 years’ experience in the public and private housing sectors in business planning, investment appraisal, financing and the development of new homes. Steve leads Savills’ work on building funding and delivery capacity with UK-based local authorities and housing associations, to help deliver new homes at scale, and also specialises in working to bring new sources of private investment and housing providers together to introduce new and innovative ways to bring private finance into the development of affordable housing. He leads work on setting up new housing providers, raising capital for investment into non-profit and for-profit housing providers, and helped traditional housing providers access these new sources of capital.

Trudy Elliott
Chair, Southern Housing