Sarah Finnegan
Head of Policy, National Housing Federation

Sarah has been at the NHF since 2017 as part of the member relations team, before becoming Head of Policy last year. She previously held different policy and strategy roles in local government in London.

Jo Allen
Head of Member Relations, National Housing Federation

Jo Allen is Head of Member Relations at the National Housing Federation where she has worked since 2015. Prior to joining the Federation, she worked in policy and public affairs roles in local government, the banking sector and the British Embassy in Madrid.

Sean Anstee
Group Chair, Trafford Housing Trust

Sean Anstee is Executive Director at Municipal Partners, working with local authorities to curate real estate propositions that solve long-term economic and social policy challenges. Sean was previously the Chief Executive of Telcom Infrastructure, part of Telcom Group, an innovative technology company, growing in Manchester. He was Leader of Trafford Council between 2014-18 and Vice Chairman of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, with portfolio responsibility for Skills, Employment and a Digital City Region. He is a board member of Trafford Housing Trust and is a keen marathon runner.

Paul Bayly
Head of Governance and Compliance, National Housing Federation

Paul is the Governance and Compliance Manager for the Federation. He looks after the Federation’s internal risk and assurance processes and is responsible for advising members on governance matters. Paul also assists organisations looking to adopt the Federation’s Model Rules for Registered Societies.

Joseph Carr
mhs Group Board member and Chair of Finance Risk and Audit Committee

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

Pauline Davis
Vice Chair, Riverside

In 2014 Pauline retired from her role as deputy chief executive and corporate director at Hull City Council. Previously, she worked in Nottingham and Liverpool both for the NHS and Local Government. Pauline is an Honorary Member of the Faculty of Public Health. She spent a number of years as a school governor and was a non–executive director of Wirral Primary Care Trust. Pauline acts as vice chair of the Riverside Group Board and is also chair of the Governance & Remuneration Committee.

Fiona Froggatt
Regulator of Social Housing

Fiona Froggatt joined the Regulator for Social Housing as an Assistant Director of Regulatory Operations in October 2018. A professional accountant by background Fiona brings a wide range of regulatory experience to her role at the Regulator, including the higher education sector, the NHS and government. During her career she has been a finance director for large and small government bodies, the Treasury Officer of Accounts for Northern Ireland and Chief Operating Officer for two Clinical Commissioning Groups in the NHS.

Sue Hockett
Director of Development, Women’s Pioneer Housing

Sue has over 40 years experience of working in the sector, having worked for Women’s Pioneer her entire career.

Sue delivers the Development Strategy with a focus on identified core objectives. Leads the delivery of Women’s Pioneer development programme ensuring compliance with regulatory and financial requirements with responsibility for the preparation of development bids, acquisition of sites, buildings for development and developing partnerships with other organisations who can support the delivery of Women’s Pioneer’s Development Strategy.

Geraldine Howley
Chair of the Governing Board, Chartered Institute of Housing and Board Director, MORhomes

Geraldine started working in the Housing Sector over 30 years ago and has gone on to build a successful and rewarding career. Since 2003 she has lead an organisation which has invested over £400 million modernising and delivering new homes and transforming neighbourhoods. A key focus of the group’s work goes beyond providing homes to ‘Improving lives Incommunities’.

Geraldine is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing and a Chartered Surveyor. In May she was appointed as a Chair of the Governing Board of the Chartered Institute of Housing following her CIH Presidential year and was appointed to the Chair position in 2019.

Locally, Geraldine is a member of the Health and Wellbeing board and Council Member of the Yorkshire and Humber CBI. In December 2016, Geraldine was made an Honorary Doctor of the University of Bradford and in June 2017 was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in recognition of her services to housing, young people and the local community.

Geraldine is also Chair of The Centre for Partnership, which is part of the Incommunities Group. The Centre for Partnership’s GEM Programme (Graduate Employment Mentoring Programme) started in 2009 and has now grown to achieve National status and has connections to both Europe, North America and Hong Kong. Geraldine is currently Chair of the International Housing Partnership.

Alan Lewin
Board Member, Hundred Houses

Alan is an experienced housing professional and was an Executive Director at Circle Anglia (now Clarion) and Sanctuary Group before being appointed Chief Executive of Axiom Housing in 2008. Between 2009 – 2017 Axiom more than doubled in turnover and won three Sunday Times Top 100 awards, whilst achieving and maintaining V1/G1 regulatory ratings.

Alan oversaw the successful merger of Axiom with Longhurst Group in 2017 and chaired Homes for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough along with being a member of the boards of Longhurst and of Hundred Houses.

In 2018 Alan was appointed Chair of Iceni Homes and is a non executive Director of Greenacre and a member of the NHF Board Members Group.

Alan is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing and the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Sciences.

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.

Jane McCall
Chair, Peaks & Plains Housing Trust

Jane took up the position of Chair at Peaks & Plains on 1 May 2020 and brings with her extensive strategic and governance experience across housing, health and education sectors. Jane held the position of Executive Director of Neighbourhoods at Trafford Housing Trust for 10 years. She has also been Deputy Chair at the University Hospital South Manchester (Wythenshawe Hospital) and for 5 years was an External Commissioner on the House of Commons Commission.

Jane currently has Non-Executive roles at the Information Commissioner’s Office, and she is Chair of Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care Foundation Trust, a provider of acute and community NHS services.

Sam McGrady
Director, DTP

Sam has more than 28 years’ experience in the social housing sector. Prior to joining management consultancy DTP, where her role combines client consultancy support with business development, partnerships and communications, she was HouseMark’s Deputy Chief Executive for nine years. At DTP, Sam specialises in strategy and governance, regulatory compliance and VFM, mergers and due diligence, and has helped more than 40 organisations prepare for regulatory In-Depth Assessment. Sam previously held a variety of senior level interim management roles, turning around failing housing organisations, and before that worked for a range of social housing landlords in housing management.

Patrick Symington
Chief Executive, MORhomes and Board Member, Estuary Housing Association

Patrick has led MORhomes since its start-up in 2018. He is a finance professional, originally from the private sector, with long experience in the housing sector as an exec director, NED and consultant. Patrick was most recently Executive Director at First Wessex responsible for Finance, IT, Governance and Business Transformation. He is a Board member of Estuary HA.

Kam Urwin
Board Member, Mosscare St. Vincents Housing

Kam Urwin has nearly 20 years’ experience of championing and supporting inclusion in different sectors. Kam has worked for disability and domestic abuse organisations in research, training and outreach roles, later spent 12 years delivering and managing award winning mentoring programmes for social housing providers nationally.

Kam now chairs a women’s support network, is an Assessor for the National Centre for Diversity, is an Associate for Housing Diversity Network and is a Director of Women in Social Housing CIC – which means working with a range of people and organisations from different areas. Kam enjoys working in areas where she feels she can make a difference to places of work and communities – bringing out the best in and connecting people.

As a mother of two, living in a diverse local community Kam appreciates the value of safe, secure and affordable housing and how it can impact positively on communities and the health, education and life chances for individuals.

Kim Vernau
Chair, Women’s Pioneer Housing

I am an experienced Chair and NED with a track record of formulating and executing Board-level strategy, building businesses and leading executive teams through high growth and turnaround situations. I am currently Chair of Women’s Pioneer Housing, iNED at Housing Association Property Mutual and formerly CEO of BLP Insurance - a key subsidiary of market leading insurance group Thomas Miller and highly regarded provider of housing warranty insurance and commercial development latent defects insurance.

I also sit on a Next Generation Advisory Services Committee for Innovate UK supporting projects considering the application of Artificial Intelligence in the financial services sector. I have recently been appointed an Ambassador for the Insurance Supper Club and am committed to diversity and equality for all. I am currently contributing to an initiative within the insurance sector to enable those experiencing domestic abuse to access help and support .

I wish to utilise my skills in insurance, housing associations and the arts to be challenged and to make a difference.

Keith Ward
Partner, RSM

Keith is a qualified chartered accountant and prior to joining RSM spent six years at a ‘Big 4’ firm specialising in the not for profit sector. He has a large portfolio of social housing clients ranging from large housing associations with 22,000 units to smaller associations with 2,000 units and a number of commercial, construction, retail and care provider clients. Keith is a regular presenter and contributor for social housing conferences and publications, including for the National Housing Federation.