Welcome to WISH East

Liz Oliver has led in compliance and safer homes roles within the housing sector for over ten years, working for organisations including Homes for Haringey and Optivo.

Liz feels passionately about keeping both residents and buildings safe. She has headed up Hyde’s Safer Homes team for around 18 months, and under her leadership, Hyde has carried out major building safety work on 10 residential buildings and thousands of other smaller projects.

She recently led on the successful recladding project affecting 433 homes in five tower blocks at Gosport. The project has not only won national awards, but Liz’s work at Gosport led to her becoming a ‘Building Safety Ambassador’ for Inside Housing.

Thanks to Liz’s approach, always focusing on engaging with residents, and by being honest, open and supportive, Hyde has demonstrated to residents, stakeholders and government that it is a sector leader in building safety.

A dynamic energetic and enthusiastic professional who achieves excellent results. Sandra is a conscientious and driven senior housing professional with a passionate sense of purpose, and a tremendous appetite for customer excellence and continuous improvement.  
As a CIH Chartered Member, she is a trusted professional with extensive housing experience and a commitment to ethical standards.
She has a combination of sound commercial acumen with core social values that have allowed her to lead and navigate successfully through some of the most challenging strategic environments, whilst keeping customer-centric values at heart.  
 There is an increasing awareness of the housing crisis, with a need to grow talent who can respond to the rapidly changing social, financial and political landscape.
Sandra is keen to raise the profile on how a career in housing is not only rewarding but also one that can make a real difference in people’s lives. She’s keen to highlight that each and every day is different, where you can go from grappling with significant societal issues, to sharing the first moment someone walks into their new home.

Emma has over 20 years’ property experience gained both in private and public sector, in sales and rentals. In addition to a strong policy background gained in local authority. she comes to us fresh off the success of establishing a private rented sector housing company within a local authority setting in South Cambridgeshire. Emma says she lives, breathes and eats property and says Rentplus was her next natural step. She is keen to make home ownership a reality for all and looks forward to seeing Rentplus rolled out across the region. Emma has also set up a local food bank and worked with schools to educate children about social issues. 

Anna has worked in social housing for over 30 years and still loves it!  Having had a number of ‘real’ jobs including with several different HA and LA providers, for the last 15 or so years she has been supporting organisations to improve; including a period of time as a Housing Inspector at the Audit Commission, Director of Consultancy at CIH and at Capita and also through her own limited company. She remains as passionate as ever about improving measurable outcomes for people who experience social housing services, and for the staff who provide them. Being a Board member of the Eastern WISH group compliments her roles as CIH Mentor and CIH Regional Board Member in supporting colleagues to be the best versions of themselves.

Claire Astbury is currently working as Interim Service Director, on secondment from her usual role as Head of Housing Strategy & Development at Luton Borough Council.  At Luton she leads on council housebuilding, energy efficiency, housing strategy and enabling affordable housing in the town. Prior to joining Luton in 2017 she represented housing associations across the East of England for the National Housing Federation.  She started her housing career in housing association allocations in 1995 and has worked in frontline and policy roles at local councils across England.

I have a strong background in Events and Project Management and have been working with Greenacre since 2018 as Executive Assistant to the Directors. I also am the Office Manager of the company.

A year ago, I also took the role on as Project Manager to the Consult’s Leadership Programme, coordinating elements of the projects and ensuring the whole process is seamless for all involved.

Alma is Head of Marketing and Communications at Greenacre Recruitment in Hertfordshire, a progressive and forward-thinking social housing recruitment consultancy heavily involved in the research and development of strategy changes in leadership, efficiency, equality and diversity across all areas of the sector. Alma writes and collaborates on research and topics and articles with Greenacre aimed at supporting, advising and reflecting on the current issues facing the sector, and is also a contributing author at Housing Futures, a global online social housing magazine.

Hannah is responsible for the operational management of Saffron which includes Housing Operations, Asset Management, the Customer Contact Centre, the community alarm service company Contact Care and Business Transformation, she is also currently a Board member for Eastern Procurement.

Hannah has 19 years’ experience across the public sector including positions in the police, social services and housing undertaking roles such as a director at national housing association, as well as working for other East of England housing associations.

Hannah is a Women in Social Housing finalist for professional of the year 2019. 

Anna’s career journey spans over 20 years - from leaving home on the Isle of Skye to go to the Glasgow School of Art, she is now in living in Essex and working in Hertford.

Having always worked in fast-paced customer centric retail, hospitality and manufacturing environments, she has spent the last 6 years, in the Social Housing sector, specifically in reactive maintenance as People Manager with MCP Property Services.

As an active member of the Lanarkshire Board of the Developing Young Workforce in Scotland before relocating, she is keen to drive MCP’s ethos of supporting people into sustainable employment. Creating opportunities for young people to experience the world of work and start an apprenticeship is not only the right thing to do in terms of supporting individuals and the local community but also ensures businesses have the skills required for the future.

In less than six years as Chief Executive of Longhurst Group, Julie Doyle has ensured a strong platform for future success by reshaping the organisation, achieving considerable value for money savings and delivering substantial growth.

With over 30 years' experience in the housing sector, Julie remains committed to ensuring the Group continues to realise its ambition of being a leading developer that improves people’s lives by providing high-quality housing and care and support services.

Since becoming Chief Executive in 2015, Julie has overseen a significant period of change that has included the 2017 merger with Axiom and the streamlining of 19 different boards and committees into one coterminous structure.

During Julie’s tenure, the Group has maintained G1V1 status, returned record financial results and owns and manages over 23,000 homes. Julie has also been instrumental in guiding the Group to adopt a more aligned approach that sees over 1,300 colleagues work together as ‘One Team’ with ‘One Vision’.

Julie is also a member of the Board for the Anchor Hanover Group and is a Trustee for the Helping Harry Trust.

Suzanna has spent the last 19 years working in the housing sector in a variety of roles. Her experience has been gained mostly in Local Authorities across Essex and East London managing teams of staff across a wide range of areas. This has included strategic housing, affordable housing development, planning policy, housing policy, homelessness, provision of specialist supported housing and finding innovative solutions to meet housing need.

Suzanna now works at Harlow Council in the Regeneration team delivering affordable housing and town centre regeneration projects.

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Following a successful 20 year career in FTSE 100 global organisations, including Granada PLC, Sainsbury's, Compass Group and SSP Group where she was Global Senior Vice President for Communications and Business Development bringing brands such as M and S Simply Food, Starbucks and Caviar House and Prunier to travel hubs, Amanda set her consultancy - Perfectstorm in 2010.  

She has a number of high-profile clients in the housing sector and led on the Clarion merger where she is still a shareholder.  She has also led on commercial benefit realisation in other mergers, growth and change programmes, including Karbon Homes, L and Q and Iceni Homes.  Amanda led the first Ministerial round table for the Green Paper consultation post Grenfell in the East of England, working with the Housing Minister, MHCLG and the Cabinet Office.  She is also Associate Commercial Director for Housemark and is leading on their brand repositioning and growth.   Her non housing portfolio has included the Lawn Tennis Association, Harvey Nichols, Women Ahead/Moving Ahead and Elm an ethical older person’s provider. 

Through her work with her retained Communications and PR clients across the sector she believes passionately in leveraging the value that East of England organisations can bring to the national and regional agenda.   She mentors several developing women both in and out of the sector.    Amanda is advanced media trained and a regular public speaker.