Our Board, Heads of Service and Leadership Team
Our Board governs our business. It sets our direction and goals. The Leadership Team supports the board to deliver the goals.
Meet the team
Diane started her career working in homelessness and mental health as a project worker and referrals officer for supported housing. She then moved into a variety of local policy and commissioning roles based in Public Health – gaining a Master’s degree in Social Policy on route. Moving to national roles – she worked with the National Treatment Agency, the Healthcare Commission and the National Audit Office and got further involved in the NHS through NED roles with primary care and clinical commissioning groups.
She became a Director for a national mental health charity in 2010, and then joined a national learning disability charity as a Director in 2015. She completed her Master’s degree in Executive Management with Ashridge Business School in 2017. She became CEO of Reside Housing
Association in 2018 and led them into a merger before semi-retiring in 2021 and moving to North Yorkshire. Diane is passionate about issues around equality and person-centred, quality services and so was delighted to join Connect as Chair in 2021. Diane also works as an NED for Sanctuary Care and Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust.
Sharon is a recently retired Chartered Accountant with over 30 years’ experience of working in professional practice and industry. Her work has mainly involved advising owner-managed businesses and she has extensive experience of providing strategic business and financial advice as well as acting as a trusted adviser to management during periods of change.
She has always undertaken volunteer roles alongside her professional life and these have included acting as a mentor to young people starting businesses and 4 years as a school Governor serving on the Finance and Governance subcommittee. She is currently a Trustee and non-executive Director of a national charity which provides educational advice to families and carers of young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
Joe is a former Executive Director working in the IT industry. He is a Trustee of Ripon Community Link, which supports adults and young people with learning difficulties to maximise their independence and a Trustee with The Avalon Group, a major regional social care provider based in Harrogate. Joe is also the Chair of the local parish council.
He was a senior business leader with over 30 years experience leading organisations that delivered customer/operational services and software to the Public Sector. In his last 10 years, he was the Executive Director of Northgate Public Services. His passion for the Public Sector, in particular Social Housing, has been his driving force throughout his career. He has worked with many Social Housing providers, both here in the UK and also in Australia/New Zealand.
Denise qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG and is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
She has a wide range of experience having been a director of the Legal Aid Agency before moving into higher education where her first role was finance director of Teesside University.
Denise has been interim Chief Finance Officer for five universities including Durham.
She held a Non-Executive director position at York and Scarborough NHS Foundation Trust and currently is a trustee for Yorkshire Collaborative Academy Trust where she chairs the finance and risk committee.
Claire has spent most of her career working in the financial services sector between the UK & US, and until recently acted as the UK Head of Employee Relations at HSBC. She now consults on matters of professional standards, regulation and policy in roles for the accountancy regulator (ICAEW), Greater Manchester Police’s Ethics Committee and for Leeds City Council Standards and Conduct Committee. Claire has worked in West Yorkshire for over 8 years. She fully believes that having a secure home is the key to enabling individuals and families to flourish.
Patricia worked for 25 years as a solicitor in a professional practice. She worked with major national and international clients in insurance, banking and financial fraud and was a Board member for many years shaping strategy, business development, people development and remuneration.
Following an MBA at Bath University she joined the third sector working for Alzheimer’s Support, became CEO of Neurocare supporting people with brain tumours, and served as a Trustee of Age UK York and the Asda Foundation.
Most recently she served as a Board Non Executive Director for eight years at Sheffield Children’s Hospital and Chaired the Quality Committee and the People and Engagement Committee.
Patricia is committed to promoting inclusion in and equal access to a fair society for all.
Joel has significant experience working in the social housing sector and is currently the Director of Development at First Choice Homes, Oldham as well as holding previous senior roles at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Housing Trust as well as Yorkshire Housing. He has a successful track record in managing complex development and asset teams, but is also passionate about volunteering, as a Non-Exec Director of St Georges Crypt CIC, a homelessness charity based in Leeds along with being a Trustee of Abbeyfield York Society.
His development portfolio includes general needs housing, supported housing (care and extra care), large-scale regeneration and exemplar developments such as the nationally renowned Derwenthorpe in York.
Erika spent 17 years in the army before moving into the commercial world in Telecomms where she was latterly a Commercial Financial Controller supporting the Managing Director for Commercial Sales at what is now Virgin Media.
Erika has worked as a CFO at the National Archives, Construction Industry Training Board and Ongo Housing and has held both Corporate and operational roles.
Erika has experience in the Public, Private and charitable sector and has led on HR, IT, Governance, Risk, Finance, Commercial Bidding, Pricing as well as running a major call centre and customer services and is a qualified accountant.
Erika is also chair of a homeless charity and an audit member of North Yorks and Humber Integrated Care Board.
Simon has been CEO of Citizens Advice Wakefield District since August 2019. Prior to that he was the CEO of Citizens Advice York. He undertakes a range of activities in the VCSE sector in West Yorkshire including roles as a trustee and treasurer of Nova Wakefield District, a trustee of the grant giving charity Prosper Wakefield and as a trustee at the Prince of Wales Hospice in Pontefract. He also chairs a partnership group, The Residents First Group in Wakefield, which aims to fund and co-ordinate projects addressing poverty in the district including working with food banks, community hubs, food pantries and housing services.
Simon has a background in running and establishing private sector businesses and working at the banking group J.P Morgan. He was born and lives in Doncaster and studied history at the LSE.
Clare brings 30 years of housing experience drawn from across local authority, housing association, government agency and commercial consulting. Much of this has been leading strategy and people and place based regeneration including delivering new homes, investment in existing homes, redevelopment, community focussed projects and place making. Clare’s wider housing operations experience is drawn from across delivering front line services to director and non executive roles. This helps Clare bring an understanding of the interrelationship of all parts of a housing service.
Clare has benefited from social housing herself as a tenant and will never forget the safety and security that a good quality social home brought her and her children. This underpins Clare’s firm focus on the need for everyone to have access to a good quality affordable home, additional support when needed and to be able to reach their potential in a thriving community.
Shaheda is a senior leader with a career spanning financial services and social housing. She has extensive experience in strategic transformation, programme delivery, and inclusive leadership, with a strong track record of driving change across complex organisations.
In financial services, Shaheda held senior roles at Virgin Money and Clydesdale & Yorkshire Bank, where she led transformation programmes, developed SME propositions, and supported executive teams with strategic initiatives. As Chair of the Embrace Network Group, she championed race equality and cultural change.
Now leading strategic business change at Incommunities, Shaheda oversees the delivery of the corporate strategy through a portfolio of transformation programmes, ensuring alignment between strategic intent and operational execution. She is passionate about creating environments where everyone can thrive.
Louise is responsible for delivering the People Strategy at Connect Housing.
She is also responsible for HR advice, support and change management; recruitment and retention; employee engagement and wellbeing; learning and development; reward and benefits; internal communications; corporate compliance.; customer complaints; health and safety and data protection.
Kevin is responsible for asset Management, including stock condition, investment planning, options appraisal and disposal.
He is also responsible for health and safety compliance for Connect properties; programme management and delivery of the planned maintenance programme, including major repairs, planned and cyclical maintenance; programme management and delivery of the development programme for new build schemes and refurbished properties; managing contractors and consultants delivering these programmes; administration of programmes including routine liaison with funders (e.g. Homes England).
David is responsible for support and wellbeing strategy, business development and partnerships, and leading operational services.
These services include Engage Leeds, a city-wide visiting support service which supports people to live independently, focussing on prevention, sustainment and integration, and including a dementia specialism. It’s part of an award winning consortium of Leeds third sector partners.
David also leads on Connect’s homeless services, including 24 hour staffed accommodation for homeless young people in Kirklees; domestic Abuse services, including Women’s Refuge and other supported housing in Kirklees; and partnership housing services, working with partner agencies to provide accommodation, support and care services in around 200 of our properties across West Yorkshire.
Richard is responsible for driving and managing change across the organisation; delivering cost efficient processes and ways of working; providing data and insight to the organisation to help track and manage performance; delivering a Business Intelligence service to support the continued development of Connect; managing the Connect Brand and leading on all customer communications.
John is responsible for statutory and regulatory financial returns; report and financial statements (audited accounts); external audit; management accounts; forecasting and budgeting; banking and cash flow management; benchmarking and Value For Money; tenders; payroll; rent and service charge accounting, and accounts payable and receivable
Alan is responsible for overseeing the ICT department and ensuring the smooth operation of all ICT systems.
He’s also responsible for developing and implementing ICT strategy, policies and procedures; managing ICT budgets and resources; ensuring the security and integrity of all ICT systems and data; leading ICT projects from conception to completion; collaborating with other departments to understand and meet their ICT needs.
Epiphany is responsible for building on local relationships with tenants, between tenants, with partners and connecting communities; tenancy management; addressing conflict and using appropriate powers to deal with antisocial behaviour.
She is also responsible for working in partnership with police, Local Authorities, and other partners to create safer communities; co-design and strategic tenant engagement; letting properties; managing right to acquire and leasehold enquiries; managing arrears prevention, collection and enforcement; a holistic income maximisation service, and being the first point of contact for all tenant enquiries and requests for service.
Marko is reponsible for delivering in-house maintenance services, day-to-day repairs, decorating, void property maintenance and boiler replacements.
Helen is our Chief Executive. She is a passionate advocate of social housing as a choice and foundation to a healthy life. She is driven by her desire for people to be treated fairly and equally. Helen’s background has involved her working with homeless people at Leeds City Council and in various voluntary organisations. In the 1990s, Helen joined The Ridings and through her varied roles in housing management, asset management and supported housing, she helped build the association into the successful and stable organisation which is now Connect.
Helen was appointed as our Chief Executive in 2016 and has since been leading the transformation of the business to make sure Connect continues to be strong and successful. She is also the nominated person responsible for ensuring compliance with health and safety requirements.
Until recently Helen was the first Chair of the West Yorkshire Housing Partnership. She now chairs the Mayor’s Dementia-ready Housing Taskforce.
As Director of Home, Martyn is responsible for leading our teams in maintenance, asset management, development, procurement and sustainability. As part of his role at Connect, Martyn leads the work undertaken by the West Yorkshire Housing Partnership in relation to action on the Climate Emergency, including working closely with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority on this agenda. He also is a member of the Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission.
Martyn is a Board member at Sheffield based Arches Housing, and for the community housing charity Canopy in Leeds.
Martyn joined The Ridings in 2002 after working for Leeds City Council in a range of environmental, senior housing and regeneration roles.
Christine is our Director of Customer and Community Services and is responsible for lettings and leasehold management, income collection, neighbourhood teams and supported housing. She is also responsible for ensuring Connect complies with the consumer standards set by the Regulator of Social Housing.
After leaving Hull University in 1983, Christine spent several years working for small voluntary sector supported housing providers in Liverpool and Bradford, before moving to London in 1987 where she held several management positions for a housing association. She returned to Yorkshire in 1998 and took up the post of Director of Housing at West Yorkshire Housing Association.
Guy joined Connect as Director of Finance and Resources in 2020. He is responsible for financial services, business assurance, IT and change.
After qualifying as an accountant with one of the large firms, Guy moved into the not-for-profit sector in 1989. He now has more than 25 years in social housing spanning small and large associations in leadership roles. He is also a non-Exec Director of Irwell Valley Homes, Leeds Community Homes and Northpoint Wellbeing. He holds Post Grad diplomas in Charity Finance and Leadership in Housing.