Being honest, I never saw myself as having a career in housing. My first role was a trainee with a local authority’s Direct Labour Organisation (DLO) where I was responsible for scheduling emergency repairs for the Hulme and Moss Side neighbourhoods in Manchester. From there I moved into a housing role working on high rise blocks and later worked with the research and strategy team collating property data including stock condition surveys and driving capital programmes. So, my early years were very property focussed and it was something that continued from there.
I have been lucky enough to lead on some really big projects including PFI (private finance initiative) and creating pathfinder projects from inception through to delivery which has made me somewhat of a project manager as well.
What I have had throughout my career is a passion for customers. Even though my roles have all been property focussed, for me it is always about the customer and what they need. In my current role I am responsible for making sure our customers have a safe, warm watertight home, something I firmly believe in and that is becoming increasingly more important with the cost of living crisis.
I undoubtedly think that over the years I have had to convince people that I know what I am talking about. Very often I’ve been one of a handful of women around the table with peers in the field, but I have worked with properties for over 25 years now, have led large scale, high value, multi-disciplinary projects so I am very comfortable with my own ability and while in my early years I tried hard to demonstrate my knowledge, I am happy these days to only speak when I can bring some value to the discussion.
Definitely my breadth of experience, working across different sectors; local authorities, housing associations and private sector construction companies has been key to building my expertise in the field. It forces you to look at things from different perspectives and in particular for me commerciality. In my current role I’m not driven by profit, but I am very much driven by getting best value for our customers’ money, so it’s the ability to look at it through different lenses.
I think one of the other things I bring to the role is the ability to switch easily between strategy and implementation. I’m still very much hands on, but I’m also responsible for developing Plus Dane’s strategic asset management approach, advising Board and making sure we are compliant with the legislation. One day I can be out on site talking to customers about the works we are planning and the next I can be sat in a room developing our 30 year investment plan – that is what love about the role.
Without a doubt it’s the challenges of net zero carbon and how we can make our homes more energy efficient and sustainable for customers. This has been on the agenda for several years now, but it’s been brought into sharp focus with the current cost of living crisis that is really starting to bite for our customers and their ability to stay warm in their homes.
From a professional assets perspective its about taking properties back to the baseline of making sure they are safe, warm and watertight and while we are all working towards the government targets, the real driver is affordability because people simply cannot afford to heat their homes in the current climate.
My previous experience sings to this challenge because arguably we are in the territory of pathfinders again. There are new technologies that are required and new skills that need to be developed – as we move away from a reliance on gas, we are talking about re-skilling whole workforces.
One of the biggest challenges to introducing new technologies is you don’t have long-term evidence of performance and that’s tricky when you are investing millions and you need to get it right. A lot of it also requires behaviour change from us as customers, you know, we are all used to using gas boilers in our homes, so moving away from this will be quite a change and there may be things we need to adapt in terms of how we currently use energy so education and communication for customers will be critical to make it a success.
There are 3 things actually:
Put yourself forward for things – never say no when opportunities present themselves, but just as importantly never be afraid to ask for opportunities, and then work your socks off because hard work pays off. I also think if you know what you want, its easier to make it happen so always take time to reflect on where you have been, where you are now and where you want to be.
