A new designate board has been appointed ahead of the proposed merger between housing associations Optivo and Southern Housing Group.
The designate board will set the strategy and monitor performance and service delivery for the new organisation once the merger completes.
Four of the board members will be residents.
The announcement follows the reveal of the designate executive team last month.
It was announced in March that the boards of both organisations have backed a proposal to look at combining forces.
The proposed merger will create a new 77,000-home social landlord, with the new organisation being called Southern Housing.
The following designate board has been named:
- Sir Peter Dixon (chair)
- Janet Collier (vice-chair)
- Carol Rosati (chair of People Committee)
- Paul Hackett (chief executive)
- Michelle Dovey (chair of Treasury Committee)
- Howard Cresswell (chair of Integration Committee)
- Eugenie Turton (chair of Housing and Communities Committee)
- Robert Clark (chair of Development Committee)
- Damien Regent (chair of Audit and Risk Committee)
- Daisy Armstrong (resident board member)
- Grace Alaneme (resident board member)
- Philip Blume (resident board member)
- Ian Wilson (resident board member)
- Geanna Bray (independent member)
Subject to due diligence and successful negotiations, Optivo and Southern Housing Group hope to complete the merger by December 2022.
Biographies
Paul Hackett CBE
Prior to the launch of Optivo in 2017, Paul led AmicusHorizon as CEO since 2012.
Before that he spent four years as chief operating officer and oversaw the transformation of service delivery.
Before joining AmicusHorizon, Paul was executive director of Development and New Business with Moat and spent eight and a half years at L&Q, where he led a number of large and complex regeneration projects and stock transfers.
Paul is an honorary professor at the UCL Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction and a member of the Bartlett’s independent advisory board.
He is a Fellow of the RICS, the Chartered Institute of Building, the Chartered Institute of Housing, and is an academician of the Academy of Urbanism.
Between 2017-19, Paul was chair of G15 and a member of the Homes for Londoners board.
Paul was awarded a CBE in 2021.
Alan Townshend
Alan has over 33 years of experience in the affordable housing sector, working with both public and private companies and running his own consultancy firm.
Alan became chief executive in September 2018, having previously been group development director for three years.
Prior to joining the Group, Alan worked at Wandle Housing, initially joining as its asset investment director before being appointed Interim chief executive officer and overseeing the operational and strategic side of the business.
His other roles include seven years at Circle Group as group regional operations director.
Alan is a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing.
Sir Peter Dixon
Sir Peter is chair of Optivo and president of the housing association English Rural.
From 2003 until 2008 he was the chair of the Housing Corporation and was knighted in 2009 for his work in the affordable housing sector.
He was the chair of University College London Hospitals (UCLH) from 2001 until 2010.
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