Lee is the Director of Operations for Riverside’s Care & Support function. The Riverside Group are a large national Registered Provider of social housing in England and Scotland, and one of the largest providers of supported housing in England. His role covers a broad range of services, including veterans, homelessness, Ofsted services, Mental Health and learning disability services, older people’s services, CQC registered extra care, and managed agents. This covers 16,000 customers, 12,500 units of accommodation, 1,800 colleagues, and an annual turnover of £191m.

He has also played a key role in advising Government on a range of sector issues, including Covid guidance for supported housing, The Fairer Renting Bill, Regulatory Oversight (Supported Housing) Act and the subsequent Supported Housing Regulations Consultation, The Review of the Experiences of LGBT Veterans who Served During the Ban, and was a member of the Social Housing White Paper Professionalisation Review Working Group.

He is currently a Member of the Homeless Link National Advisory Council and Regulatory Advisory Board, and the Co-Chair of the CIH Homelessness Policy group.

Stephen Philpott is Director for Housing Solutions & Support at Birmingham City Council. His career has taken him from managing homeless shelters on ‘skidrow’ Los Angeles, through night-shelters, Shelter Housing Aid, Rough Sleepers Initiatives, hostels Places of Change, Supporting People, Housing First, Everyone In, through to all that faces the sector now. With over 30 years experience in the voluntary sector and the last six leading services across the largest Local Authority in Europe, Steve has a lot to reflect on and look forwards to.

Tom has spent 20 years tackling homelessness, mental ill health and inequality. Starting as a housing officer, he progressed through leadership roles to become chief executive of Porchlight, Kent’s homelessness and mental health charity. He is also a trustee of Justlife, which champions people living in temporary accommodation.

Driven by the belief that homelessness can be prevented and ended, Tom is motivated by seeing people find and keep a home and rebuild their place in the community. He is determined to address the systemic failures that return around a thousand people in England to rough sleeping each month.

His leadership combines courage, trust and bold action with close attention to clients, staff, volunteers and partners. Their lived experience shapes Porchlight’s work.

Tom holds a master’s degree in housing from the London School of Economics and has held leadership and advisory roles across the sector. Most recently, he has led Porchlight’s transformation, securing its future and strengthening its impact.

​Jeremy White is Head of Consultancy at Homeless Link. He works with local authorities and voluntary & community sector partners across England on developing robust supported housing needs assessments and strategies, homelessness and rough sleeping strategies, service reviews and wider transformation programmes. His expertise includes strategic commissioning, needs analysis, market shaping, partnership development and service redesign.​

​Prior to joining Homeless Link in 2022, Jeremy was Commissioning Manager at Bristol City Council, where he led the commissioning and contract management of homelessness and supported housing services, working closely with Adult Social Care, Public Health, NHS partners and providers, He has experience across housing, health, social care, criminal justice and voluntary sector systems, helping organisations translate evidence, policy and local need into practical and deliverable solutions. Jeremy is a Chartered Manager and Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute.​​​

Charlie Conyers is currently Assistant Director of Accommodation Options and Allocations at London Borough of Waltham Forest, responsible for provision of temporary accommodation, procurement of private rented sector housing for homeless households and allocation of social housing. Prior to joining Waltham Forest in 2022 he worked in a similar role at London Borough of Lambeth. He has over 20 years’ experience working in the homelessness and temporary accommodation fields.

​James is Head of Service for Strategy and Community Regeneration at Newcastle City Council, responsible for providing strategic leadership for the Council’s Housing Strategy, Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy and Community Regeneration functions, ensuring delivery of corporate priorities and statutory responsibilities.

​James leads on the development and implementation of a citywide programme through collaboration with internal and external partners. Identifying opportunities to prevent crisis by broadening the scope of interventions across key touch, trigger and transitions points, strengthening the thread between the Council’s policy aim of no evictions into homelessness and service delivery to make a measurable difference to residents​​​​​

Mike is an experienced housing professional and CIH member, currently leading the Setting the Standard service for the Commissioning Alliance, inspecting and grading nightly paid temporary accommodation pan-London to improve quality and standards. This year, he helped to introduce the London Accommodation Management Agreement (LAMA) which works pan-London to control the price of TA in a rapidly changing market. He is also responsible for the West London Alliance’s housing for vulnerable people programme, which includes work to reduce housing related health inequalities, empty homes, MMC and collaborative housing work in west London . Prior to joining for the WLA in 2023, Mike worked for a charitable housing association for 12 years in a range of roles from frontline rough sleeping services to strategic asset management, housing management, property procurement and finding creative solutions to a lack of homeless accommodation.

​Ben Keegan has been Chief Executive Officer of Roundabout since 2005. Roundabout is a youth homelessness charity working across South Yorkshire. He has worked in the homelessness sector for over 30 years and has extensive experience of developing services that prevent homelessness and support young people to build independent lives.​​

Under his leadership, Roundabout has grown significantly, providing accommodation, prevention, mediation and specialist support to young people aged 16 to 25.​

​Ben is particularly passionate about preventing youth homelessness before it happens, including through innovative approaches such as Upstream, which identifies young people at risk while they are still at school.​

Ben works closely with local authorities, national organisations and policymakers to champion early intervention and ensure that young people have access to the support they need.​

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Lee is the Director of Operations for Riverside’s Care & Support function. The Riverside Group are a large national Registered Provider of social housing in England and Scotland, and one of the largest providers of supported housing in England. His role covers a broad range of services, including veterans, homelessness, Ofsted services, Mental Health and learning disability services, older people’s services, CQC registered extra care, and managed agents. This covers 16,000 customers, 12,500 units of accommodation, 1,800 colleagues, and an annual turnover of £191m.

He has also played a key role in advising Government on a range of sector issues, including Covid guidance for supported housing, The Fairer Renting Bill, Regulatory Oversight (Supported Housing) Act and the subsequent Supported Housing Regulations Consultation, The Review of the Experiences of LGBT Veterans who Served During the Ban, and was a member of the Social Housing White Paper Professionalisation Review Working Group.

He is currently a Member of the Homeless Link National Advisory Council and Regulatory Advisory Board, and the Co-Chair of the CIH Homelessness Policy group.