Switchee, the UK’s leading provider of smart home technology for social housing, today announces the appointment of Leann Hearne as Interim Chief Executive Officer.
Leann will begin a structured handover with Tom in March, ensuring continuity of leadership as she succeeds him in the role. Tom has led Switchee for six years and overseen the company’s journey from an emerging start-up to the UK’s leading IoT provider for social housing.
Hearne’s appointment marks a unique milestone for the sector. As a former housing Chief Executive with extensive board experience, she offers deep insight into the challenges, priorities, and opportunities faced by housing providers.
Her manufacturing background further enhances her credibility to lead a company at the intersection of engineering, data, and housing policy, enabling her to navigate these areas seamlessly.
Hearne’s career represents a thread that runs through the same challenges Switchee was created to solve: safe, warm, affordable homes; engaged residents; and landlords equipped with insight to act before problems escalate.
Her appointment reflects conviction, shared by the board and investors, that the next phase of growth demands a leader who has sat on both sides of the relationship.
Tom Robins departs Switchee, with his tenure demonstrating maturity in the sector. Under his leadership, Switchee launched the Housing Fuel Poverty Index – the sector’s first and only real-time measure of fuel poverty across social housing – developed Mould IQ, an intelligent damp and mould resolution platform designed specifically to support compliance with Awaab’s Law, and created the Energy Voucher Service, a sector first that delivers direct financial support to social housing residents through the Switchee device.
Switchee’s technology is now widely deployed across tens of thousands of social homes, with strategic partnerships covering retrofit verification, Awaab’s Law compliance, fuel poverty identification and decarbonisation measurement across Wave 3 of the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund.
The company’s stated ambition – to bring the platform to one million UK social homes – places it at the heart of some of the most critical policy questions of this decade: how social housing providers demonstrate compliance, measure resident wellbeing and invest with confidence in an increasingly regulated environment.
Leann Hearne, incoming Interim CEO of Switchee, said: “I have spent my career working to make homes safer, warmer and fairer. Joining Switchee is not a departure from that mission – it is an acceleration.
“What Tom and the team have built here is remarkable – technology that genuinely changes the lives of residents, data that helps landlords make better decisions, and a company whose purpose is inseparable from its product.
“The opportunities facing the sector, such as Awaab’s Law, fuel poverty and the decarbonisation agenda, are exactly the opportunities Switchee was built for. I am proud to be leading this next chapter.”
Tom Robins, outgoing CEO of Switchee, said: “Leading Switchee has been the greatest privilege of my working life. We set out to prove that technology and data could fundamentally improve the lives of people in social housing, and we have done exactly that, at scale.
“Handing over to Leann feels right for this moment. She brings the kind of sector knowledge, regulatory credibility and determination that Switchee’s next phase demands.
“The company is stronger than it has ever been, and I am genuinely excited about what comes next.”
Switchee is a Housing Digital Stakeholder that seeks to make maintaining properties simple and straight forward with remote tools that allow the user to check a property’s condition, analyse problems, and schedule fixes.
Read more: Over 1000 Switchee smart thermostats installed in CHP residents’ homes to improve living conditions
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