A force to be reckoned with

Louise Casey, Director, Antisocial Behaviour Unit, Home Office

Louise Casey, who launched her action plan on antisocial behaviour last month, says she was particularly impressed by a group of Oldham mothers. They took action against aggressive local youths, gathering evidence for antisocial behaviour orders. “They’re truly inspirational,” she says. She is less positive about Shelter, the homelessness charity she once worked for. Of its opposition to the Antisocial Behaviour Bill, she says: “People have a right to get help, but they have to know that they need to control their behaviour.”

Ann Santry, Chief executive, Sovereign Housing Association

“We should do more to sell housing as a career,” says Ann Santry. “So many of us got into housing by chance.” Santry’s doing her bit, encouraging her niece to take a job in the sector as well as setting an example as head of a 12,000-unit association. However, she is concerned that the age-old pressure to go to the capital to get on the jobs ladder still holds especially true for women, saying: “I’m not at all sure I would have had the same career progression outside London.”

Alison Thain, Chief executive, Tees Valley Housing Group

How much has housing changed since 1973? A fair bit: Alison Thain’s first job, as a trainee at Newcastle council, was writing the entire city’s voids on a blackboard: “That’s the joke,” she says. “It wasn’t a very big blackboard.” Now she heads Tees Valley Housing Group and is leading the campaign for a market renewal pathfinder in the region. Her often light-hearted manner masks a determination to finish whatever job she’s involved in: “You have to take the knocks and get back up again.”

Yvonne Leishman, President, Chartered Institute of Housing

Many people fall into the sector, but Yvonne Leishman never wanted to work anywhere else. By the age of 28 she was assistant director of housing at Kirklees council. Now, besides her CIH role, she is director of operations at Wyre Forest Community Housing. She believes the institute has a role in helping more women to progress: “Our job is to try and ensure that young people coming in get help to raise their standards. Through this, we can raise standards for those we actually work for.”

Yvette Cooper, Junior housing and planning minister, ODPM

Yvette Cooper has packed more into the first 12 or so years of her career than many people manage in a lifetime. After studying at Oxford and Harvard, she worked as a researcher for the late Labour leader John Smith, before returning to the USA to join president Bill Clinton’s campaign team (“I met him once – I was speechless,” she says). She became an MP in her native Yorkshire in 1997. She has been at the ODPM since June and says homelessness and tackling its causes are the areas in which she feels she can make most difference.

Gaynor Asquith, Director, ABRA

Gaynor Asquith is one of the most qualified women in housing. As former group director of the Guinness Trust, and with 20 years at the Housing Corporation under her belt, she has plenty of career highlights to choose from. For her, the best bit was setting up her regeneration consultancy, ABRA, last year, which influences housing policy in the North. “People say I was brave to leave the trust,” she says. “It just felt like the right thing to do.” Asquith is enjoying the freedom consultancy gives her, but has one regret: “I should have left the corporation sooner.”

Rebecca Pritchard, Director of services, Centrepoint

“My dad always used to tell me that I’d have to be twice as good as any bloke,” says Rebecca Pritchard, now director of services at youth homelessness charity Centrepoint. “But once I was over a certain age and had read certain books, my response was to say, ‘well, that’s not going to be very difficult, is it?’” Pritchard, who is often to be found out on the town with a gang of housing friends, doesn’t think that being a woman has held her back – although she admits that things would be more difficult if she had children.

Sue Regan, Associate director for social policy, Institute for Public Policy Research

Sue Regan would never be so pompous as to ask for a monument, but if she did it would be the work she’s doing to encourage good behaviour through the welfare system. “It’s a hugely controversial area,” she acknowledges, “but nobody is really looking at this positively.” Policy talk can err on the dry side, but Regan infuses her ideas with human interest. The government is apparently listening: her plan to allow tenants to buy an equity stake in their home made it into the Labour manifesto, and the Treasury recently launched her state trust fund for every child.

Jill Preston, Consultant and adviser to housing market renewal team at the ODPM

It all could have been very different for Jill Preston, after her degree in sculpture from Yale University. But, while running the Housing Aid programme in Liverpool in the early 1970s, she got hooked on the housing bug. Her CV spans four local authorities in England and Scotland, and she became mainland Scotland’s first female director of housing, in North Ayrshire, in 1988. Preston says she always knew she was going to make a big noise: “I knew I’d try to make a sizeable difference in whatever field I worked in.”

Mavis McDonald, Permanent secretary, ODPM

A career civil servant, Mavis McDonald has chaired more than her fair share of committees. But nothing prepared her for heading the government’s emergency cabinet to tackle foot and mouth in 2001. “We met twice a day, seven days a week, for the first month.” She has undertaken some huge tasks at the ODPM too – not least the work on low-demand housing that culminated in the £500m renewal fund included in the Communities Plan. However, she has also worked closer to the front line, being a former board member of Broomleigh and Ealing Family housing associations.

Karen Buck, MP for Regent’s Park and Kensington North

Having become an MP in 1997, Karen Buck’s proudest moment came, she says, when she was part of the lobby that pressurised the government to adopt targets for bed-and-breakfast use. The former Labour party policy officer sees it as a duty for those with an interest in housing – always marginal to most voters, she admits – to champion its causes. “We can persuade people that others’ housing affects us, or we can take up the fight for those whose issues are never going to break though in opinion polls,” she says.

Oona King, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow

“My ambition is to be housing minister,” says Oona King. “No chance there, then.” The problem, she says, is that she “loves passion” – something that is not, by her own admission, necessarily a good quality for young politicians seeking high office. “When you campaign passionately on certain issues, your colours are nailed,” she explains. “I have strong views in housing.” The issues she gets passionate about in her east London constituency include overcrowding, fair rent, antisocial behaviour and inner-city renewal.

Vicky Stark, Chief executive, Look Ahead Housing and Care

“Determined” is a good word to describe Vicky Stark. She has fronted supported housing specialist Look Ahead since she was 28 years old. That was 1981; since then, she has transformed it from a sleepy organisation to a major force with 3000 clients. Stark can’t remember how many units the association is currently building but that’s not what motivates her – she wants to help people lead ordinary lives. “It sounds like a boring ambition, but lots of our people lead extraordinary lives in a pretty bad way. We enable them to do the things we take for granted.”

Heather Petch, Director, Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust

Heather Petch likes change. In fact, her job means that she spends her days coming up with better ways of doing things and convincing others to try them out. “I’m good at communicating in different spheres,” she says, “and at an organisation like HACT that’s important.” Lively and forthright, Petch admits to suffering from self-doubt at the start of her career. “If I did things over again,” she says, “I would have been more assertive much earlier. Being self-deprecating can be endearing in friends, but bloody irritating in an interview.”

Valerie Hayllor, Chief executive, Severnside Housing Association

At one housing job interview, Valerie Hayllor was dragged to dinner with the other candidates – all male – and forced to spend the dullest evening of her life making chit-chat about scout clubs and the Round Table. “It was a world I just wasn’t part of,” she remembers with a laugh. Hayllor didn’t get that job – luckily for Severnside, the more woman-friendly organisation that she now runs. ”I became more successful once I was more confident in my abilities,” she says. “You can’t keep a good woman down.”

Mary Lynch, Strategy director, Lovell

Mary Lynch has few regrets about leaving Camden council’s three-star housing service for housebuilder Lovell last year. “I no longer have 250 staff or massive budgets. I work on strategy. It’s less stressful.” Turning Camden from a basket-case to a showcase was no task for the faint-hearted. “I used to wake up in the night wondering if anyone had died from gas poisoning,” admits Lynch. If she was housing minister for a day, she has an interesting suggestion. “I would take away the emphasis on tenant participation. They are not interested in policy – they just want better services.”

Jheni Williams, Chief executive, Federation of Black Housing Organisations

Working for the federation clearly suits Jheni Williams– she’s been there for 15 years. Having started as a temp in 1988, she was appointed its first female chief executive in January. Williams laughs a lot, but takes the role seriously. “It’s a big thing for me,” she says, but thinks her greatest achievement is still to come: “Watch this space.” One space you would do well to watch is Williams’ National Black and Minority-Ethnic Staff Network, with which she aims to promote housing staff as role models for tenants and residents.

Anne Kirkham, Head of decent homes division, ODPM

Anne Kirkham’s job description sounds simple but belies a Herculean task: to ensure each social tenant has a decent home to live in by 2010. So, how are things going? “There is a huge commitment out there to deliver the target. I think it’s an agenda people have embraced,” she says. And what does this diminutive, discreet civil servant think of the man who handed her this most pressurised of jobs? “[Deputy prime minister] John Prescott is really good to work with. It’s great working with a minister with vision,” she says – right on message.

Hilary Bartle, Head of community housing taskforce, ODPM

Best known as the person who introduced the controversial Supporting People care services funding regime, Hilary Bartle is no out-of-touch mandarin: she has worked her way up from the front line. Her heroine has nothing to do with social housing, though: this mother of an eight-year-old daughter would like to be able to juggle work and home like Nicola Horlick, the fund manager and mother of five. Bartle’s advice to young women considering a career in housing? “Work with people on estates. After six months, you will have a much better understanding of what people really want.”

Dawn Eastmead, Head of housing management, ODPM

“I’m an opportunist, job-wise,” says Dawn Eastmead. “I’ll look at what comes up and decide whether to go for it or not.” This attitude saw Eastmead in several council jobs before heading to Whitehall. Although she enjoys bringing a sense of reality to civil service chambers, her professional roots lie in the fight against homelessness. Her fondest memory is getting 22 heroin addicts off the streets through a £100,000 programme she set up after just two weeks at Brighton & Hove council. “I don’t think I could have done it if I’d been there any longer,” she says.

Sue Ellenby, Head, London Housing Federation

Sue Ellenby was nearly lost to the housing world before she had left her native North-east. “As a teenage actress I performed in the film Women in Love, with Glenda Jackson,” she says. “But Hollywood never called.” Instead, Ellenby committed herself to the Citizens’ Advice Bureau, then charity Shelter, where she helped people with a “variety of awful problems”. She has worked for both councils and associations, but says the past six years at the London Housing Federation have been perfect. And if Hollywood ever does call? “I’d jump at the chance if I could play Tina Turner.”

Pam Alexander, Non-executive director, Quintain Estates

With a CV ranging from the Department of the Environment to the Housing Corporation, Pam Alexander is soon to be chair of the Peabody Trust and chief executive of the South-East England Development Association. There are two secrets to her phenomenal success: multiple networks and a strong identity. “Women should never change their name,” she says. “Once you’ve got a brand, you should hold on to it.” She also puts great faith in staying in touch with friends as you climb the greasy pole and has a charming manner backed by a steely determination.

Julia Thrift, Director, CABE Space

Julia Thrift started professional life as a journalist, writing about design and architecture for 10 years before joining the Civic Trust to run its architecture awards. Now director of CABE Space, part of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, she oversees a major campaign to encourage public bodies to put spare land to better use. Softly spoken, she has a real vision of the difference her work can make. “The public spaces between our houses are the glue that holds society together,” she says. In this job, she is determined to make sure that glue holds fast.

Ruth Bagnall, Chair of the housing executive, Local Government Association

Since taking up her job at the LGA in August, Ruth Bagnall has been striving to make the organisation more dynamic. “We will be pressing home the need to deliver the Communities Plan,” she says. When wearing her other hat as a Labour councillor in Cambridge, Bagnall’s main preoccupation is with the government’s growth areas. “In Cambridge, I’m worried the scale of growth we’re looking at rests on public transport following the commitment to deliver housing. To put it politely, this seems like upside-down thinking to me.”

Wendy Jarvis, Head of local authority housing, ODPM

Wendy Jarvis may look after some of the ODPM’s drier financial business, but she’s no dull bean-counter. She seems to have boundless enthusiasm – which is lucky, or she wouldn’t have lasted long in housing. Starting her first job as a rehousing clerk at Manchester council, she was greeted with the words: “You will be promoted in six months or have a nervous breakdown.” In her first month there was a suicide and shooting, but they didn’t put her off. Her last stop before the ODPM was setting up the Ministry of Defence’s housing agency, a task she calls a “once-in-a-career opportunity”.

Shaks Ghosh, Chief executive, Crisis

Legend has it that it was seeing homeless people on the streets of her native India that drew Shaks Ghosh to a career in housing. Actually, it was love – she had a major crush on her geography teacher. “I got really good at geography, because I wanted to impress her, so it was the obvious thing to do later.” After a degree in geography in India, Shaks did urban studies in Manchester before joining Leicester council’s urban renewal team. She is happily preparing for her seventh Christmas at Crisis. “I’m one of those sickening people who comes back from holiday and can’t wait to see what’s on my desk.”

Constance Hall, Chief executive, Kush

Size doesn’t matter to Constance Hall. She has led 750-unit Kush for eight years but could easily command a larger empire. “If you’ve got transferable skills as a service manager, it doesn’t matter what size the organisation is,” she says. In fact, for one year of her eight, she took the helm at Kush’s parent New Islington & Hackney Housing Association. Hall has the perfect background for running a budding social business: after a business studies degree, she worked with small businesses in south London before moving to the Housing Corporation to help associations adjust to their new role as social businesses.

Margaret Ford, Chair, English Partnerships

As the chair of this newly empowered quango, you might imagine Margaret Ford is the kind of woman who always had her sights set on senior office. Not true. “I’ve never planned anything in my life,” she says.”If you suggested that to anyone who knew me, they’d fall about laughing.” But the plain-speaking Scot has high ambitions for EP in its new role: unlike some in regeneration, she is convinced radical renewal can be achieved through community engagement. “If consultation is genuine and well-organised, what you end up with is common sense.”

Honor Chapman, Chair, London Development Agency

With an illustrious career in urban development including Canary Wharf and post-reunification Berlin, it comes as no surprise that Honor Chapman loves cities. Her favourite is Pittsburgh, a “raunchy industrial city”. It reminds her of Leeds, where she went to school in the early 1960s. “You could feel it pulsating with the business of making things,” she says. What’s more surprising is her passion for organic farming: “I’d like to see more people being given the opportunity to grow their own vegetables – that’s at the back of my mind when I’m thinking about housing projects.”

Terrie Alafat, Director of the Homelessness Directorate, ODPM

Terrie Alafat’s policy-making career started in the ghettos of Chicago, but is now firmly based on the streets of the UK. She tends to use a lot of policy-speak, but any stuffiness is countered by her warmth and enthusiasm for the job. Her commitment shows in her hands-on approach, such as the time she went out with the department’s outreach workers to meet a drug-addicted young prostitute sleeping on London’s streets. “It was really compelling,” says Alafat. “It makes you want to keep doing this job because there must be a way to find a solution.”

Kate Davies, Chief executive, Servite Houses

Empathy is the key to a successful career in housing, according to Kate Davies. “I’ve lived in high-rise council housing, and I have three children. I’ve had a range of experiences in life that have made me more open to the realities people face.” Now chief executive of 9000-home Servite, Davies has an obvious love for the job that goes beyond the nine to five. Tenant participation is close to her heart – she’d like to see estates run by the people who live on them. She acknowledges that she can never solve all the problems people face, but says she’s having a great time trying.

Clare Tickell, Chief executive, Stonham Housing Association

Down-to-earth Clare Tickell thrives on the challenge of turning organisations around. “I go into an organisation with fresh eyes and harness its energy,” she says. Since taking over at Stonham six years ago, she has doubled its turnover and transformed it into a supported housing specialist, accommodating and caring for 11,000 people in England every year. But she refuses to take the credit: “There’s a lovely moment in change management when you can stop and realise it’s happening without you – that it’s not you doing it.”

Catherine Hand, Partner, Jenkins & Hand

Lawyer Catherine Hand admits she would be a lot better off if she’d gone into tax law. But something attracted her to housing. “It’s just a basic human need. The idea of somewhere where children can grow up, that allows them to fulfil their potential, is so important,” she says. Her work on regeneration projects and stock transfer makes her feel as though she has played a part in improving the lives of tenants. “I was involved in two projects in Hackney dating back to 1995 that have led to the regeneration of estates that were ridden with cockroaches and horrible to live in.”

June Barnes, Chief executive, East Thames Housing Group

June Barnes started her career as a town planner but left because planning “simply wasn’t working for me”. Planning’s loss is housing’s gain: as well as running East Thames, Barnes is a member of the executive group of the London Housing Federation and a commissioner on the London Sustainable Development Commission. She says she is “easily bored”, but “there are always enough challenges in housing to keep me interested”. Is there anything she would change about herself? “I talk too much. I’m always in awe of people who can say few words but ensure they carry power.”

Barbara Thorndick, Chief executive, West Kent Housing Association

A student party, a mad landlord and a samurai sword were responsible for Barbara Thorndick’s career in social housing. She left her student home in a hurry after her landlord attacked her with a sword, having taken offence at a party there. No one was hurt, but Thorndick had a brief, deeply affecting experience of homelessness. “It was horrendous,” she says. “It made me realise you can be homeless through no fault of your own.” She started her career at Westminster council, with stints at London & Quadrant and North British before taking the helm at West Kent in 2001.

Debra Lawson, Chief executive, Wandle Housing Association

“I love challenges,” says Debra Lawson, the highly driven chief of south London-based Wandle. She isn’t kidding. Next month she’s to compete in the annual Triathlon World Championships in New Zealand, having been swimming, cycling and running to relax since 1999. Lawson recommends treating every experience as a “learning opportunity”. She gives an example from her formative years in the sector when she had to inspect traveller site toilets every Friday – “you need that frontline experience”.

Carol Radmore, Chief executive, Family Housing Association

Growing up in a single-parent family, Carol Radmore says it was her mother’s work ethic that inspired her success. “It’s a requirement instilled in you, you always have to do your best,” she says. Now top of the tree at 12,000 Family, she credits another inspirational woman – Jean Blunden, her first boss at Westminster council’s homeless persons unit – with teaching her the importance of building teams, fundamental to her job. “Some people, particularly men, are fearful of having capable people around them, but she wasn’t. That’s the secret of success.”

Liz Clarson, Chief executive, Housing for Women

“We shouldn’t underestimate what it means to a woman to have a tenancy in her own name. It empowers her to have control of her life,” says Liz Clarson, chief executive of the London-based registered social landlord that provides exactly what its name suggests. Although technically at the top of the association’s hierarchy, its relatively small scale makes Clarson’s job “very hands-on”. She has the perfect personality for the task: open and completely lacking in pretension.

Sandra Skeet, Chief executive, Refugee Housing Association

“Mine’s not a job you talk about at dinner parties,” admits Sandra Skeet. Refugee Housing Association helps the most vulnerable groups in society, but Skeet despairs of the “acceptable” racism that refugees and asylum seekers face. She enjoys navigating choppy political waters and her ability to speak fluently about her association’s work will come in very useful when it takes on the more active campaigning role she is planning for it in the future. “I want to make people see that refugees and asylum seekers are human beings rather than a number or a problem,” she says.

Genie Turton, Director general for housing, homelessness and planning, ODPM

“The last thing I want to do is create a housing white or green paper,” says Genie Turton. You could understand the statement from someone outside Whitehall, but from the director general for housing, homelessness and planning? She explains: “Because housing touches on so many areas – it’s very hard to pin everything down.” Turton should know: when she retires, next May, she will leave a formidable legacy. She worked for various departments but her most recent contribution was pulling together the Communities Plan, which is probably enough to put anyone off policy work forever.