Welcome to WISH South East

Lauren is as an ambitious professional with a strong determination, her sales experience enabled her to become familiar with working in a pressured and competitive environment. Lauren is Head of New Business for Guildmore Ltd, Guildmore is an active developer and construction company within the housing industry. Lauren’s approach to accumulating a high success rate is led by working collaboratively both internally and externally and champions working as a team in every aspect of her role. Lauren has a passion for the social housing sector and really feels she has an opportunity to make a difference in tackling the housing crisis. Her passion for social housing is coupled with a passion for championing women. Someone with this enthusiasm and respect of her fellow colleagues shows her ambition to further support like minded professionals and is using WISH as a platform to help them achieve their goals.

Melissa is the Chair of the South East WISH network. She has worked within Social Housing for over 11 years and brings strength and depth to the role, building on her commercial expertise gained working in numerous sales and business development roles across the sector.
Currently working for Wates Living Space as a Client Relationship Director, Melissa’s enthusiasm and passion for social housing is infectious and she is a firm believer in creating a plentiful supply of quality social housing to enable communities to flourish.
Her ambition through WISH is to enable other women in the sector to benefit from her extensive experience and to help lead and inspire others to excel in their roles. Melissa is supported in her role as Chair of WISH South East by seven other influential leaders across the sector.

'Being able to be a part of such a positive and influential networking group is so important to me and the SE board; we understand the importance of sharing ideas, experience and providing support for tomorrows leaders.' 

Lynsey has worked in the housing industry for 12 years across a breadth of services from legal, financial budgeting, marketing, business development and procurement.

She is currently with Fusion21, helping their Members to achieve their desired project outcomes, whilst strengthening relations amongst various supply chains.

With a passion for all things sustainable, Lynsey is enthusiastic about the current decarbonisation of our housing stock and has first-hand experience of the UK’s first whole house retrofitting scheme and the largest GSHP project in Europe.

Incredibly passionate for female representation in the industry, across STEM, construction, and social housing, Lynsey is keen to share informative and technical content for everyone in the industry and to encourage other women to smash glass ceilings and gender stereotypes.

“Interacting with such a prestigious group of knowledgeable women is incredibly empowering, I can’t wait to get started!”

Sharon has worked within a Social Housing setting for close to 20 years, specialising in Housing Management, ASB and Resident Engagement. She is incredibly passionate about Community Safety and tackling ASB, which blights lives and communities. Sharon enjoys sharing her working experience and knowledge with others and is an Associate for Janine Green ASB (WISH Midlands Board member) delivering ASB Tools and Powers training to Housing Providers, Local Authorities, and the Police, up and down the country.

Sharon currently works for L&Q as their Head of Housing Specialisms team, delivering repeatable, reliable, and consistent ASB, DASV, Safeguarding & Vulnerability, MH, Resident Support and Tenancy Fraud services to their many residents.

Since attending her first WISH on-line event during lockdown, Sharon knew that she wanted to become involved in whichever capacity she could.

“Being part of such a wonderfully positive and inclusive group of like-minded people is incredible. I really value the support we show each other and how that support translates into inspiring others to achieve their best. I am thrilled to be a part of WISH SE, and so very proud of the events we hold, where inspirational speakers get to share their stories and experiences.”

"Shirley is Head of Membership with The Housing Forum, which is the only cross-sector, industry-wide organisation that represents the entire housing supply chain - primary purpose is to encourage collaborative solutions that increase the supply and delivery of quality homes through partnership.
In her role, Shirley is responsible for membership management and engagement, ensuring sector issues are raised and addressed through seminar & networking events, consultations and proposals to Government.
She joined The Housing Forum in March 2020, having previously worked for GL Hearn as Associate Director for housing and development, and Rentplus as Partnerships Manager for London and Southeast.
Shirley has held senior roles in affordable housing and development across public and private sectors, with a number of Housing Associations, Local Authority and building contractor.
Shirley says;

"The WISH organisation has long been recognized as a positive presence in the sector, providing a forum and support for women in housing, whatever stage in their careers. I’m thrilled to be part of it, and really proud of the quality of events we hold, and the inspiring speakers and members who have joined the Southeast branch of WISH."

Naureen’s most recent role as Business Brand Ambassador for a renewable technology company, coupled with more than 14 years’ experience in social housing primarily within the areas of development and housing management, affords her a great insight into the challenges faced by the housing sector from the viewpoint of both client and private companies/landlords. She prides herself on her natural strength of relationship building, collaborating, networking and promoting diversity and inclusion. 

Naureen’s housing journey began with working within a well-respected regeneration project as part of the housing management team, which inspired her to appreciate the rewards of such work and to progress within the development areas of new build and regeneration.  This led to her managing, training and mentoring a future generation of housing professionals and she continues to be passionate in supporting apprentices and those who want to re-train in the housing industry.  

She thrives on organisation and especially enjoys planning community events and fundraising campaigns raising funds for a variety of charities.

‘’I am excited about this opportunity and looking forward to working with the WISH board, particularly with promoting new and working with existing memberships.‘’

After making the decision to move to the UK nearly 5 years ago, I can certainly say that I have enjoyed every challenge and experience so far. Although I have been actively involved in real estate for the past 11 years, my career in the affordable housing sector began 5 years ago when I joined JLL. I mainly focussed on the valuation of new build developments for several different Registered Provider clients. It was here that I discovered that I have a passion for the sector. 

Whilst living in South Africa, I spent seven years working for a surveying firm as a Property and Asset Surveyor in Johannesburg. I am currently employed at CBRE in the Affordable Housing team. 

I am continuously looking to further my qualifications, and I thrive on being around people and networking. You will always find me with a smile on my face. 

I am thrilled to be working with the WISH board encouraging new memberships, working with existing memberships and being part of an inspirational group of women!

Meg came to the industry in 2018 on the contractual side and worked in a variety of roles, before finally finding her passion in Client Relationships & Business Development.

At Cablesheer, Meg is responsible for bringing in new business opportunities to all divisions and ensuring existing clients are happy with their service. She is also responsible for marketing, social value, and bid management.

Having worked alongside the Housing Sector for the entirety of her career, Meg is driven in property compliance and ensuring resident safety.

"I'm really excited to come on board and learn so much from such an inspirational group of women!!"