The LHF is run

by a board of voluntary trustees

They represent the wider housing sector and ensure that the aims and objectives of the foundation are met.

Ian Brady, Executive Chair

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.

Simon Dow

Since 2018 Simon has been the Interim Chair of the Regulator of Social Housing the government’s arms 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.

Professor Nick Hardwick CBE

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 Vice chair of Prisoners Abroad, 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 Joseph

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

Jeremy is an adviser on homelessness and has been working in the field of homelessness and housing since 1980, early in his career working as both a hostel worker and a street outreach worker. He was Chief Executive of homelessness charity Thames Reach from 1999 to 2018.

In 2018 Jeremy was seconded to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to manage a range of homelessness programmes for the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Directorate and in 2020 joined the Covid 19 Rough Sleeping Task Force, established by MHCLG to ensure that rough sleepers were able to rapidly come off the streets in response to the pandemic.

Clare Miller

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 Shepherd

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 Stebbing

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 Stringer

Eleanor is Head of Programmes at Education Endowment Foundation, and brings of knowledge and experience of using evidence to improve outcomes for disadvantaged young people. Her work includes managing large grants that are robustly evaluated to assess their impact on students’ learning and producing evidence-based guidance reports for schools. Before that, she worked at Social Finance and New Philanthropy Capital. She is also a local councillor and Cabinet Member for Merton Council.

Hayley Dobson

Hayley is Executive Assistant at London Housing Foundation, she is the first point of contact at LHF for all enquiries.

Email: hayley.dobson@lhf.org.uk