John Bryant
Policy Leader, National Housing Federation

Peter Barker
Consultant and Trainer, Housing Systems

Emma Blaney
Partner, Head of Residential Management, Cluttons

Sarah Chatfield
Director of Home Ownership, Anchor

Sarah has worked in social housing for more than 30 years, mainly specialising in leasehold management. She has worked for large G15 organisations such as Clarion, Hyde HA and MTVH and is currently the Director of Home Ownership for Anchor – England’s largest provider of specialist housing and care for people in later life. She is a Board Member of the National Leasehold Group and an associate of the IRPM as well as a qualified lawyer. Sarah specialises in all aspects of leasehold management including Service Charges, re-sales and staircasing, income collection and front line housing management.

Helen Coldron
Leasehold Manager, Gentoo

Paul Connolly
Head of Service Charge and Rent, Guinness

Paul has worked in social housing since 2012, and was responsible for centralising and nationalising the Income Collection and Debt Recovery activities for the three Guinness group partners.

Paul was appointed as the Head of Rent and Service Charge at Guinness in October 2019, implementing a new service charge system and structure to the service, whilst also navigating policy changes with the introduction of the new Rent Standard.

Jen Davis-Dean
Head of Retirement Housing South, Housing 21

Amanda Gourlay
Associate, Tanfield Chambers

Dawn Grocott
Leasehold Manager, Torus 62 Ltd

Dawn has worked in Social Housing for 24 years and is experienced in all aspects of Leasehold Management, Shared Ownership and Service Charge administration. Currently working as Leasehold Manager for Torus 62 Ltd, Dawn also chairs the Affordable Home Ownership Group (North & Wales).

Jane Harrison
Finance Director, Soho Housing

Jane has over 25 years experience in the housing sector and is currently Finance Director at Soho Housing, a smaller Registered Provider based in central London.

She has in-depth knowledge of service charge accounting including calculating, setting, recording and reporting service charges for tenants and leaseholders.

Jane is a member of the editorial board for the Housing Association Finance guidance published jointly by CIPFA and the NHF and is author of the Rental and Associated Income section. She is a regular speaker, most recently at the Social Housing Annual Conference.

Olivia Harris
CEO, Dolphin Living

Olivia Harris is Chief Executive of Dolphin Living. Dolphin Living is a charity providing affordable rental homes to working Londoners on modest incomes. The charity develops, purchases and manages build to rent properties in London. Previously, Olivia was Finance Director at Dolphin Living. She is a Chartered Accountant and has worked for more than 15 years in the property industry.

Olivia is also the immediate past Chair of Westminster Property Association, sits on the Board of Westminster Community Homes and is a member of the British Property Federation Residential Board.

Scott Jeffreys
Service Charge Manager, Trafford Housing Trust

Scott is the Service Charge Manager for Trafford Housing Trust. He manages a small Service Charge team who are responsible for calculating and reporting service charges to 7k properties.

Scott has over 10 years housing experience. He co-founded the ‘North & Wales Service charge group’ in 2018 which shares best practice, peer to peer advice on service charges specifically. The group has grown to 90 members representing over 40 different housing providers.

Stephen Knight
Director, Heat Trust

Hazel Makinson
Head of Customer Impact, Riverside

Steve Michaux
Director of Residential Services, A2 Dominion Group

Rachael Mills
Director, SE2

Rachael is passionate about helping householders, communities and organisations find real solutions for a sustainable future. She has a strong grounding in the built environment and energy efficiency, and has worked in the sector for over 25 years. Through 2016-2019, Rachael lead the Sustainability Team at Southern Housing, specifically focused on improving their new and existing communal heating schemes and processes, including efficiency analysis, tariff setting, customer communications and internal stakeholder liaison. During this time, she co-founded (and is remains the secretariat for) The Heat Network, a peer group for social housing providers to meet and share good practice on their communal and district heating schemes, representing nearly 20% of all heat network customers across the UK and supported by the National Housing Federation. Rachael is also a co-founder of the District Heating Divas, a business network that recognises the supportive power of women working together. It’s now one of the fastest growing (and fun!) diversity and inclusion networks in the UK energy industry with over 300 members across the UK.

Lynne Nicholls
Director, Leonis Solutions Limited

Lynne has over 19 years’ experience working across the Housing sector . Her specialisms are service charges, Section 20 consultation, and systems migrations. She is a Director of Leonis Solution Ltd, a training and consultancy firm, and vice chair of the board for Watmos Housing Association. She is active in the LGBT+ community serving as Chair of Trustees for Schools OUT UK, Co-Chair of the Clarion LGBT+ Network, Events Officer for HouseProud, and speaks in schools for Diversity Role Models.

Liz Oliver
Safer Homes Director, The Hyde Group

Liz Oliver had led in compliance and safer homes roles within the housing sector for over ten years, working for organisations including Homes for Haringey and Optivo.

Liz feels passionately about keeping both residents and buildings safe. She has headed up Hyde’s Safer Homes team for around 18 months, and under her leadership, Hyde has carried out major building safety work on 10 residential buildings and thousands of other smaller projects. She recently led on the successful recladding project affecting 433 homes in five tower blocks at Gosport. The project has not only won national awards, but Liz’s work at Gosport led to her becoming a ‘Building Safety Ambassador’ for Inside Housing.

Thanks to Liz’s approach, always focusing on engaging with residents, and by being honest, open and supportive, Hyde has demonstrated to residents, stakeholders and government that it is a sector leader in building safety.

Sue Ramsden
Policy Leader, National Housing Federation

Sue Ramsden is a Policy lead at the National Housing Federation. She looks after a number of areas including: Covid 19 response, Landlord and tenant issues, Supported Housing and Welfare.

Dydy Sodeinde
Assistant Director of Housing Services, St Mungo's

Adrian Shaw
Head of Rent and Service Charges, L&Q

Emma Towler
Head of Home Ownership and Service Charges, Aster Group UK

Rob Thompson
Head of Finance (Income), Thirteen Group

Rob Thompson is the Head of Finance (Income) at Thirteen Group, the largest Housing Association in the North East of England. Rob has been with the organisation, which is headquartered in Middlesbrough, since 1994. He has held various managerial positions within supported housing, property maintenance, customer services and general housing management. For the last eighteen years his key focus has been income services management, rent and service charge setting, and rent accounting, working across both housing operations and finance.

Thirteen Group have always been keen to look for innovative solutions that offer process automation, so that they can work smarter, build capacity and make best use of available resources and technology. Over the next five years the group plans to invest more than £1bn across the North East of England, Yorkshire and Humber.

Martin Watson
Home Budgets Manager, PA Housing