Andrew Cooper is Head of Business Development and Fundraising for Sovereign Housing Association and joined Sovereign in 2020. His role includes overseeing Fundraising, Social Impact and Sovereign’s Financial and Digital Inclusion support programmes for customers. Andrew is passionate about communities and has significant experience in housing, local government and community investment and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing. His previous employment includes roles at Clarion Housing Group, Birmingham City Council and Cannock Chase Council and as a Teacher of History.

Eileen McMullan joined SFHA at the end of March2021. She plays a lead role in representing member’s housing related interests in Health, Homelessness, Social Care and Support and on Poverty and Inequality. Her experience in the housing, care and support sector has been on policy and delivery roles in central, local government, housing associations and the third sector. This has been in England, and she has only recently moved to Scotland to work for SFHA. Her early background was housing management in supported housing, and she is currently leading a project on developing good practice on tenancy sustainment in collaboration with third sector partners.

Maggie is the Programme Manager for the Hyde Group’s homelessness prevention service, Successful Tenancies. Successful Tenancies provide an innovative approach to supporting those at risk of tenancy failure to stay in their homes, drawing on the expert skills of a multi-disciplinary team. This includes FCA regulated debt advice; welfare advice; health and social care advocacy, and employment support. Maggie has a Master in Public Administration and a background in housing management, community regeneration and innovation. Her more recent work has been focused on developing evidence based approaches to tenancy support and preventing homelessness, with a special interest in the link between tenancy failure and poor mental health. Maggie sits on the national Debt Advice Operational Group, and is a member of the NHF Homelessness Steering Group. She has been a visiting lecturer in Partnerships and Networking at Brighton University, and is a trained community mediator. Maggie has worked for the Hyde Group for 15 years.

Matthew Walker is Chief Executive of Leeds Federated Housing Association. He is a qualified accountant and was previously Finance Director before becoming Chief Executive in 2004. Matthew has held senior housing roles since 1991 and is a Chartered Member of the CIH. He is Chair and a founding member of PlaceShapers, a national network of over 100 community-based housing associations. Matthew is passionate about improving the quality of people’s lives by providing great quality homes they want to live in, in areas others want to move to.

Phil has been with Karbon Homes since January 2021 heading up the Customer and Community Engagement directorate. In this role Phil is responsible for several service areas including Karbon’s Money Matters team, a free financial advice and support service, the Foundations for Life team, which provides residents with employment, education and training opportunities as well as digital support. Phil also heads up the organisation’s approach to community investment and is responsible for all customer engagement, giving residents opportunities to have meaningful involvement in shaping Karbon’s business. Having worked in housing for 18 years, Phil has an extensive knowledge of the sector. His previous roles include Director of Operations with Byker Community Trust and Head of Financial Wellbeing at another Northeast based landlord. Phil was also a board member for the Chartered Institute of Housing Northeast for 4 years.

Rachelle’s research at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation focuses on decent and affordable housing, and household finances and economic and fiscal policy. Rachelle previously worked as an analyst at the New Zealand Treasury, where she coordinated the Budgets, including implementing the first Wellbeing Budget in 2019. She also worked on housing policy, focusing on social and emergency housing in New Zealand.

Sarah Thomas has 11 years’ experience in the housing sector at Executive level, most recently as Chief Operating Officer at Peabody, and Interim Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer at Catalyst. Prior to roles in housing, Sarah worked in the commercial sector including over 8 years’ experience at a senior level at Eurostar. Sarah’s roles have covered a wide range of business activities including strategic planning, transformation, operations, customer experience and corporate services. Sarah has also been a non-executive on the panel of advisors for the Housing Ombudsman and is currently a board member for the for-profit housing provider, Rezide.