Until 2020 Ian was the Chief Executive Officer of Depaul International. Ian has extensive experience and expertise in the housing and homelessness sector…
and served as a Senior Civil Servant across a number of key Government Departments, including the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Home Office, and the Department for Education. He was Deputy Director of the Government’s Rough Sleepers Unit, Head of Delivery for the Respect Taskforce, and the Troubled Families Programme.
Before he joined the Civil Service, Ian worked in the voluntary sector for several years and was Deputy Chief Executive of the national youth homelessness charity Centrepoint. He took on the role as Executive Chair of the London Housing Foundation in January 2021.
Since 2018 Simon has been the Interim Chair of the Regulator of Social Housing the government’s arm’s length body regulating England’s social housing….
Until 2015 Simon was Group Chief Executive of The Guinness Partnership which owns 65,000 homes across the country. Prior to joining Guinness, Simon was the Chief Operations Officer and then acting Chief Executive of the Housing Corporation.
In the past he has been the Chair of the Dolphin Square Foundation, Director of the National Housing Federation, a Board Member of Homeless International, (a development agency working in Asia & Africa) and Chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s Audit Committee.
The first half of Nick’s career was in the voluntary sector, first working with young offenders for the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders…
then leading the youth homelessness charity Centrepoint before moving to run the British Refugee Council. In 2003 he was appointed to establish and run the Independent Police Complaints Commission as its first Executive Chair. He moved from police to prisons and was Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales from 2010 to 2016 and Chair of the Parole Board for England and Wales from 2016 to 2018.
Since 2016 he has had a part time role as Professor of Criminal Justice at Royal Holloway, University of London where his research and teaching focuses on criminal justice accountability mechanism and he has worked on this with states and international organisations throughout the world. He is Chair of Nacro, a board member of the Independent Custody Visitors Association and a patron of the Zahid Mubarek Trust and Unlock. He has honorary degrees from the universities of Hull, Wolverhampton and Leeds Beckett and was awarded a CBE in 2010.
Derek is the Company Secretary of the Foundation and responsible for the management of its investment portfolio. With over 35 years’ experience…
in the financing and organisation of affordable housing he is currently Chair of Aquila Services Group, an LSE quoted consultancy and responsible for its international division.
A non-executive director of a quoted property investment company, investment advisor to a major UK charity and a director of a cloud-based software development company. Recent publications include a review of REIT’s in Africa and works on new funding and legal structures to increase access to affordable housing.
Jeremy Swain spent 17 years as a member of the LHF board up until his sad death in May 2024.
Jeremy was Chief Executive of homelessness charity Thames Reach from 1999 to 2018 and then worked with central government on a range of homelessness programmes. In 2020 he was asked to join the Covid 19 Rough Sleeping Task Force, established to ensure that rough sleepers were able to rapidly come off the streets in response to the pandemic.
He was a central part of London Housing Foundation and is greatly missed.
Clare is Group Chief Executive at Clarion Housing Group, which comprises the country’.s largest provider of affordable housing. A social business…
Clarion reinvests its profits into building new homes and providing support and opportunities to its 125,000 households through Clarion Futures, its charitable foundation.
Clare was appointed Group Chief Executive in 2018, having previously been Group Director of Governance and Compliance. Under Clare’s leadership, the Group has delivered a record number of new homes and had its highest regulatory gradings reaffirmed. A passionate advocate for social housing, Clare’s career has also seen her responsible for the regulation of housing associations at the Tenant Services Authority and The Housing Corporation. Clare is a chartered accountant.
Eloise is Strategic Lead for Housing, Planning and Welfare at London Councils, a cross party organisation representing London’s 33 boroughs and the City of London…
Much of her work making the case to national and regional government for boroughs has centred on the huge challenge of homelessness.
Prior to this she worked at Camden Council on Housing Strategy and their community grants programme, and before that was at Clean Break – a theatre company working with women offenders and those at risk. She is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing Policy Board.
John is a retired Architect and for nearly 50 years he was deeply involved with Social Housing, firstly helping to run an Inner-City Association and then in his private practice…
As a result, he has been involved with the provision of many hundreds of new homes over the years and remains passionate about the need for decent affordable homes for everyone. For many years he was on the board of an RSL and has been, and remains, involved with a number of environmental and community organisations trying to raise awareness of the climate issues that confront us all.
Eleanor is Deputy Leader of Merton Council and Cabinet Member for Civic Pride. Alongside her political experience, Eleanor brings her knowledge from a number of “what works” centres…
using evidence to improve outcomes for disadvantaged groups. Most notably she spent 10 years at the Education Endowment Foundation managing large projects that assessed their impact on students’ learning and producing evidence-based guidance reports for schools. Before that, she worked at Social Finance and New Philanthropy Capital.
Lydia is the Head of Housing Options and Support at Bromley Council; she has worked in local authority homelessness services for over 20 years.
This includes working as a sub-regional Homelessness Co-ordinator for the five boroughs in the South-East London Housing Partnership. She brings her diverse knowledge of leadership and performance management to the delivery of homeless and commissioned services for vulnerable people. Lydia is actively involved in transformation and change management processes which lead to the prevention of homelessness and ending of rough sleeping for single people.
