Kirsty Wark
Journalist

Kirsty Wark is one of the UK’s trailblazing female news journalists. She presented BBC’s Newsnight for 30 years, stepping down after the 2024 General Election. Her long career on Newsnight has seen her holding politicians and public figures to account with her formidable interviewing skills. She made her reputation as a journalist and producer on BBC Scotland, memorably reporting from the scene of the Lockerbie bombing, before joining BBC 2’s arts strand The Late Show as a presenter, moving on to Newsnight in 1993. Kirsty continued to span both arts and news/current affairs, hosting The Review Show for over a decade, as well as a range of BBC Arts series and documentaries. Over the years she has had memorable encounters with everyone from Margaret Thatcher to Madonna, Harold Pinter to Pete Doherty, Damian Hirst to George Clooney and the likes of Toni Morrison, Donna Tartt and Philip Roth. Kirsty hosts Radio 4’s long-running flagship series The Reunion, and regularly presents of Start the Week. She continues to present arts programmes on TV and Radio, cultural history series such as The Women Who Changed Modern Scotland and Panorama specials. Kirsty has won several major awards for her work including BAFTA Awards for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting, Journalist of the Year and Best Television Presenter. In 2024 she was honoured with a lifetime achievement award at the RTS Journalism Awards.

Dr Fiona Holland
Senior lecturer in psychology, Derby University

Jayne Cornes
Customer experience manager, whg

Michelle Hallmark
Behavioural scientist and managing director, Creative Bridge

Oliver Mooney
Head of Category, Fusion21

Oliver has worked in the wider construction and built environment sector for over 15 years. Originally from a construction project management background, he has spent the past 9 years working in public procurement.

In his current role he leads a team focussed on the procurement of capital works contracts across a range of sectors, scale and complexity. Oliver is responsible for the development and implementation of Fusion21's framework products and ensuring that services meet the needs of members and supply chains.

He has been a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) since 2018 and is currently completing a Masters in Public Procurement Law and Policy.

Sandy Livingstone
Executive Director of Property, Onward Homes

Sandy is the Executive Director of Property for Onward Homes, a developing housing association that owns and manages 35,000 homes across the North West. Sandy is responsible for the delivery of Onward’s development programme of 5,000 new homes by 2030, a £100m retrofit programme addressing some of Onward’s least energy-efficient properties, maintenance, and its strategic approach to asset management.

Jon Daley
Head of ESG, G2M Group

Matthew Scott
Policy Officer, Chartered Institute of Housing

Dr Kelly Henderson
Founder and Managing Director, Addressing Domestic Abuse

Kelly is the founder and Managing Director of Addressing Domestic Abuse who undertakes research, evaluation and training on domestic abuse and works with housing providers to support them to improve their response to domestic abuse. Kelly co-founded the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance and has a range of housing experience including Director of Housing, roles in asylum, Supporting People Programme and housing policy and research. She has a Masters in Housing Policy and Management and a PhD on the role of housing in a co-ordinated community response to domestic abuse. Kelly is also a Non-executive Director of Believe Housing.

Nicki Clarke
Head of Housing, Standing Together Against Domestic Violence

Nicki is the Head of Housing at Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse, leading the Housing team to ensure that survivors of domestic abuse can access safe and secure housing. Nicki also sits on the National Domestic Abuse and Housing Policy and Practice Group, working with partners across the sector to influence national policy around this area. Prior to this Nicki spent more than 13 years working frontline in various roles within social housing and as the Domestic Abuse lead for Westward Housing she successfully guided them to achieve DAHA Accreditation in 2022.

"The Housing Community Summit is an event that really delivers for housing providers, offering a wide range of subject matter from engaging and interesting speakers. It is fantastic to be part of helping to shape this!"

Sonny Cook
associate partner, Baily Garner

Emma Gilbank
Service Manager for Sustainability and Climate Change, Connect Housing

Emma joined the sector three years ago after graduating from the University of Leeds, and currently works for Connect Housing. She is passionate about driving positive change through collaboration, with a particular focus on justice and inclusion. She was a finalist for Young Achiever at the Women in Housing Awards and was named in the Climate Champions Power List by Unlock Net Zero. Emma is also a board member at CIH Futures, representing young housing professionals at a national level.

Jacque Allen
Chief executive officer, Your Housing Group

Oona Goldsworthy
Chief Executive, Brunelcare

Oona became Chief Executive of Brunelcare, a Bristol based housing association providing homes and care, in late 2109. She was previously the CEO of United Communities housing association where she remained at the helm for 16 years, growing the organisation from its inception to become one of the leading providers of affordable homes in the City. Oona is a Board member of the National Care Forum, Care and Support West and Trustee of Second Step housing association. She is also Co-Chair of the Bristol Homes and Communities Board.

Julie Robinson
Executive director, Greatwell Homes

Paul Smith
Director, Foundations

With over 30 years’ experience in housing, Paul works with local authorities, housing associations and central government to improve how home adaptations are delivered. He was part of the independent review of DFGs in 2018 and co-authored the national guidance published in 2022.

Paul leads several national initiatives to improve delivery and standards across the sector—including the Trusted Assessor programme, the DFG Quality Mark, and the Home Adaptations Installer Network.

He brings a practical, person-centred approach to system design, focused on speeding up delivery, reducing complexity, and supporting people to live well at home.

Laura Wood
Founder and Director, Invisible Creations

John Wallace
Director of Procurement, Clarion Housing Group

John began his career in the brewing industry becoming a qualified Master Brewer. Having spent 10 years in brewing production, John moved onto various brewing procurement roles prior to spending 2 years in the food sector 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 moving to Housing with senior procurement roles at Anchor, MTVH and now Clarion Housing Group.

Faith Abudu
Founder and director, Diversity and Inclusion in Construction

Jan Taranczuk
Independent Consultant, National Social Housing Fire Strategy Group

Stewart Davison
Founder and Vice Chair, Elehan Consulting and 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.

Debansu Das
Business Development Director, ZED Pods

Mark London
Senior partner, Devonshires

Naz Ahmed
Deputy Director of Strategy, Poplar HARCA

Scott Bache
Product manager, HouseMark

Sam Lister
Policy and Practice Officer, Chartered Institute of Housing

Natalie Tate
Project Lead for Talking About Homes, Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Natalie supports communicators in the housing sector to frame their communications so they build public understanding of why our homes matter. Natalie leads on the Talking about Homes project, which is co-funded by the Nationwide Foundation and Joseph Rowntree Foundation. She has over 20 years’ experience working in housing communications, across internal and external communications, policy and campaigns.

Bronagh D'Arcy
Chief operating officer, Tuath Housing

Jez Sweetland
Project Director, Housing Festival and Bristol City Council

Jez has initiated and managed strategic development in a variety of settings. His previous positions include CEO of Guildhall Barrister’s Chambers, and CEO of a charitable national skills training organisation. He founded the Bristol Housing Festival in 2018 and believes collaboration is the key to lasting social development. Jez lives in Bristol with his wife, Joanna and his three children.

David Ball
Co-founder, Cornerstone Place

David is co-Founder of Cornerstone Place, a Social Enterprise property development consultancy working with councils and charities to help fix the UKs broken housing system. David has over 20 years experience in property development and investment as well as having his own version of lived experience of homelessness supporting his late father who spent time on the streets. Cornerstone Place exclusively delivers Impact First Social Housing which puts the assets in the hands of the impact makers for long-term societal benefit.

Akshita Lakhiwal
Net Zero Engagement, TPAS Cymru

As Net Zero Engagement Officer at TPAS Cymru, Akshita drives sustainable transformation in the housing sector. Drawing on her broadcast journalism background, she combines creative storytelling with strategic communication to promote net zero initiatives. Akshita is an expert in community engagement and innovation, focusing on creating meaningful impact through effective communication strategies that inspire sustainable action and positive change.

Stephen Welton
Chair, British Business Bank

Caritas Charles
Senior Policy and Insight and Innovation Manager, Tpas

Caritas has worked in the sector for 24 years in numerous roles at a frontline and strategic level . In his current role he works with Tpas members in informing on and helping to shape national housing policy and ensuring that people who live in social housing have their voices heard. A scrutiny geek he also facilitates the National Scrutiny Club. Keen to bring new ideas in engagement to the sector Caritas has written a guide to using deliberative engagement methods and is currently looking at global engagement best practice.

“I am delighted to be asked again to be on the Advisory Panel for the Housing Community Summit. The inaugural event was a huge success demonstrating the passion, commitment and dedication that is out there in our sector and the amazing work we do when we all come together. 2024 set the bar high, I cant wait to see what we can put together for 2025.”

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.

Jonathan Tan
Chief executive and founder, Greater Change

Chris Fleck
Chief technology & product officer, Mobysoft

Rachael Williamson
Director of Policy, Communications and External Affairs, Chartered Institute of Housing

Rachael Williamson interim Director of Policy, Communications and External Affairs at the Chartered Institute of Housing, where she’s worked since 2021. Prior to this she worked for the civil service for over 10 years in a number of government departments (Ministry of Housing, Cabinet Office, Defra), as well as for Citizens Advice.

Elly Hoult
Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Chief Executive and President, Peabody and CIH

Elly has over 22 years' experience in the housing sector, working her way up from supported housing officer to executive level roles. Elly was previously the Group Director, Assets and Sustainability at Notting Hill Genesis.  Her earlier roles were Programme Director, leading the integration programme for Notting Hill and Genesis, and Director of Business Improvement as well as a range of roles at Orbit and A2 Dominion.  Elly sits on the National Housing Federation’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Group and is a member of the Green Spaces Advisory Board. She is the current President of the Chartered Institute of Housing,.

Jacque Allen
Chief Executive, Your Housing Group

Jacque’s 30-year housing sector career commenced as a Housing Assistant, then Housing Officer through to senior roles of Executive Director and now CEO of Your Housing Group. Jacque joined YHG in 2020 as Chief Operating Officer and was appointed CEO in August 2022. Jacque is a Chartered Member of the Institute of Housing, initially trained in homelessness and studied Strategic Leadership with the Chartered Institute of Management. Jacque has been directly involved in lots of change, none more important than ensuring inclusivity continues to be woven into the DNA of everything we do.

Rev James Olanipekun

Reverend James Olanipekun has lived in Poplar since 1991. He has been a member of Tower Hamlets Council’s overview and scrutiny committee; Chair of London Borough of Tower Hamlets’ Safer Neighbourhood Board (Mile End Ward); is a trustee of Tower Hamlets Street Pastors, Raine’s Foundation Trust, and Christ Apostolic Church.

He is also the immediate past vice-chair of Poplar housing and regeneration community association board in East London and is the current chair of one of the estate boards in Poplar Harca stock. Reverend James Olanipekun was a pioneer member of the Housing and Diversity Network London Region steering board.

Reverend James Olanipekun is a trained teacher, author of six published books on Christian topics. He has been a volunteer Pastor for over twenty years for a diverse congregation and was a recipient of the 2015 LBTH Civic Award for Outstanding Services to the community. Reverend James Olanipekun is happily married to Jummy and blessed with children who are also involved in the community positively.

Gerraint Oakley
Chief Development and Growth Officer, Platform

Gerraint is executive director of growth and development at Platform Housing Group, a 50,000-home housing association based in the Midlands.

His previous roles include managing director of Curo’s house-building business in Bath and regional managing director of Keepmoat Homes South West. He has over 35 years of experience in property, real estate, asset management, development, and urban regeneration.

Gerraint joined Barratt Developments Plc in 2008 where he worked throughout the UK in Barratt and David Wilson Homes Divisions. Prior to joining Barratt, he worked for Vodafone for 10 years where he was a global strategy director specialising in real estate and development. He is a board member and chair of the development committee at Ongo Homes.

He has a passion for developing affordable homes, creating opportunities for apprenticeships, graduate programmes, and access to employment for those who would otherwise find it difficult to access such opportunities. He also undertakes coaching and mentoring for people starting out in their careers or those looking to develop in their careers.

Gerraint is a keen long-distance cyclist, which he does to raise funds for children’s charities.

Karen Gregory
Training officer, tenant, and panel member, Aster, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Karen is a tenant and training officer at Aster and is a member of the Social Housing Resident Panel for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and The 4Million Homes Panel. She is a Board Member for Transform Housing & Support where she is also the Safeguarding Lead.

Lindsey Gurrey
Lived experience - anti-social behaviour

James Feetham
Inclusive Service Team Leader, Great Places Housing Group

James is the Inclusive Services Team Leader at Great Places Housing Group. The role of his team is to understand who is living in the homes owned by Great Places, what their needs are and how Great Places as an organisation tailor their service offer to those who need it. James is a disabled wheelchair user who has grown up living in Social Housing, and has over 20 years of lived experience to recount upon when communicating with customers. James is passionate about driving forward Inclusion and Accessibility in Housing, and in June 2024 was invited to the House of Lords to support the launch of the #FitForOurFuture campaign with Foundations UK and Invisible Creations.

Faith Abudu
Founder and director, Diversity and Inclusion in Construction

Faith has a wealth of experience ranging from the Al Jazeera Media Network, World Climate Foundation and most recently, Nationwide Platforms.

Faith is the founder and trustee of the charity Diversity and Inclusion in Construction (https://diic.org.uk/), which aims to bridge the gap for women, disabled and ethnic minorities in the construction industry.

Morris Williams
Procurement manager, L&Q

Amanda Newton
Chief Executive, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing

Amanda took up her role as the new permanent Chief Executive of Rochdale Boroughwide Housing in September 2023. Her professional experience spans private and public sectors with her most recent experience being in senior roles in the social housing sector. This has spanned governance and business improvement, leading customer facing services and delivering high impact social investment programmes that make a huge difference to people being able to thrive. She is now leading RBH through its transformation back to regulatory compliance with a focus on shaping services for and with our customers whilst making it easy for the people in our business to deliver.

Amanda has a relentless focus on delivering great services that make a difference to the people living in our homes and communities. She believes that those people working in customer facing roles should be able to do so seamlessly and with a passion that makes a real difference to customers. She believes that our customers should be able to expect to live a warm, safe home and is focusing RBH on delivering this fundamental objective for social landlords.

Ian Hembrow
Senior consultant and trainer, Creative Bridge

Jen Radcliffe
Head of Partnerships, Places for People Thrive

Jen Radcliffe is Head of Partnerships for PFP Thrive which is part of Places for People. Jen brings over 20 years of experience working with social housing partners in the recruitment and training sectors. She’s widely recognised for her knowledge of the sector, keeping up to date with emerging trends, legislation, and industry developments.

Jen is also a passionate advocate for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, working closely with clients to promote equal career opportunities. Most recently, she has been involved in the CIH’s ‘Choose Housing’ campaign and sits on the board of Women in Social Housing (WISH) Northwest, where she champions women’s career progression in the sector.

Sem Lee
Director and Founder, OURI Labs

Sem Lee is an urban strategist and social entrepreneur with over 11 years programme managing sustainability, communication and design projects. Deeply affected by our housing crisis founded OURI Labs, a practice specialising in participatory research and design working between urban planning policy and practice to help reduce the problem of the approximate £1.4bn cost to the NHS due to poor housing in the UK. Collaborators include Health Innovation North East North Cumbria, Greater London Authority, Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and UK Office for Health Improvement and Disparities.

"With the current challenges facing social housing delivery, this collaborative platform comes at a crucial time. I'm particularly passionate about social housing's vital role in addressing health inequalities, and I believe this summit will allow us to collectively explore creative solutions to meet ambitious housebuilding targets while ensuring we create homes that truly serve our communities' needs. The prospect of engaging with diverse perspectives and facilitating crucial, challenging discussions that will help shape the future of social housing makes this panel particularly exciting."

Polly Cox
Sector Learning and Development Manager, Housing Ombudsman

Dewbien Plummer
Associate, Housing Diversity Network, Co-chair, HouseProud and Strategic Lead for Housing Complaints, Lewisham Council Housing Services

Dewbien has decades of operational experience in the sector, (local authority and housing association), with a background in leasehold and repairs and maintenance.

Jennifer Hutchings
Group wellbeing manager, Places for People

Kelly Smith
ASB & tenancy sustainment manager, VIVID

Sue Hodgson
Resident and member of scrutiny panel, Thurrock Council and Mears Group

Sarah McClelland
Associate Director, Sustainability, RISE

Kathleen Cottier
Chief Executive, Fold Housing

Kath has over 20 years of experience working in the Irish Housing Association sector; leading development, property and housing teams. Prior to her role as CEO at Fold, at Executive level in Clúid Housing, she was responsible for front-line services and working to lead the organisations strategic development and growth as well as contribute to strengthening the Housing Association sector. She is the current Chair of the Board for CIH Ireland.

Paul Carroll
Director of housing and community development, Fingal County Council

Shurreen Miles
Housing officer, Brighter Places

Matt Baird
Founder and Recruitment Partner, The Social Housing Roundtable and SpireHouse

Matt has over 13 years of experience supporting the social housing sector. He has served as Board Co-Chair for Spring Housing and St Annes Hostel and founded The Social Housing Round Table, a platform connecting thousands of sector stakeholders. On a day-to-day basis he recruits staff for the sector nationally in partnership with Spirehouse Recruitment with his clients nicknaming him “the ethical recruiter”. As an advocate for change and authentic dialogue, Matt champions the needs of tenants and professionals within the social housing space, believing that it’s only through open discussion that true change can occur.

"With the incredible success of last year’s conference, it’s fantastic to be involved with putting together a programme that is focused on what the sector has requested and needs. Being a part of this panel provides the opportunity to truly share ideas of those that we work with in the sector to create a conference that those who truly care about making things better can be proud of."

Vikki McCall
Professor, University of Stirling

Evie John

Peter Hubbard
Senior Partner, Anthony Collins

Peter is the Senior Partner of the firm, having worked at ACS for 25 years. He is a nationally recognised leader in the field of social housing and advises registered providers, local authorities and other social housing organisations on major projects as well as constitutional, governance and regulatory issues. Peter specialises in strategic support for executives and boards, where he advises them on growth and diversification, as well as group structures, corporate and governance matters. Peter is ranked as a Band 1 lawyer in Chambers and Partners 2020 for social housing.

Diane Carney
DTP

Helen Watkinson
resident panel member, Housing Ombudsman and tenant scrutiny panel member, EMH Homes

I’ve always had an interest in being part of the community and making a difference, so when the opportunity arose to become an engaged resident I was keen to get involved.

My personal experience of the complaints procedure at emh gave me insight on the issues faced by residents and once things had been resolved, I began to think about how I could stop this happening to other residents.

I joined the Scrutiny Panel as I felt my skills were really suited to the role, with my main enthusiasm focused on compliance and the delivery of a good service, and I am in my 3^rd year of holding the position of Chair.

The panel has an important role in identifying areas of the business that need improvement and we work on investigating then making recommendations in these areas, ensuring the best interests of both residents and emh.

Subsequently seeing how things have changed and improved because of customer influence has been really satisfying.

The Regulator’s inspection was my first experience in this type of highly focussed audit and I found the experience both exciting and nerve wracking at the same time, especially with the new Consumer Standard which was to be assessed.

Whilst we didn’t attain a C1 this time round and were awarded a C2, everyone is pulling together as a team on our journey “Pathway to C1” to make it happen.

One of the observations from the Regulator cited a gap in hearing the resident voice at Group Board level, so the Scrutiny Panel have been closely involved in the consultation of an engaged resident redesign, which is currently being developed.

We are looking forward to the new engagement structure being delivered in the very near future and with that a stronger resident voice across the whole business.

Anthea Chilton
Sector Development Lead, Housing Ombudsman Service

Anthea Chilton is a Sector Learning and Development Lead at the Housing Ombudsman Service. Anthea is part of the Quality, Engagement and Development (QED) department and the team delivering the Housing Ombudsman Service’ Centre for Learning (CfL). The CfL provides landlords with access to a wide variety of learning resources to enhance their complaints management and drive a positive complaint handling culture.

Victoria King
Sector Learning and Development Lead, Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS)

Victoria King is the Sector Learning and Development Lead at the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) and is part of the Quality, Engagement and Development Department. Victoria is part of the team who deliver the Housing Ombudsman Service’ Centre for Learning, which is where HOS share learning from complaints and drive positive complaint handling across the sector. The function also provides insight into service provision from themes and trends in complaints to facilitate sector learning and a positive complaints culture for landlords and governance.

John Hoarey
senior dispute resolution manager, Housing Ombudsman Service