Speakers Day 2

Daisy McAndrew
Journalist and political commentator
BBC Wales

Daisy is a freelance radio and TV presenter, reporter and writer. She has 30 years’ experience reporting on UK politics, economics and business as well as the British Royal Family.Daisy has had senior reporting roles at BBC and ITV News including Chief Political Correspondent, Economics Editor and Special Correspondent.Before moving into broadcasting in 2001 she spent a decade working in Westminster, starting off as a 19-year-old MP’s researcher before writing for many newspapers from the Press Gallery, profiling MPs in The House Magazine.

Stuart Ropke
Chief Executive
Community Housing Cymru
@stuart_chc

Stuart was appointed as Chief Executive at Community Housing Cymru in October 2014. Previously Assistant Director of Policy and Research at the National Housing Federation, the trade body for housing associations in England, he was responsible for leading the Federation’s Policy and Research function, and for shaping the Federation’s futures and thought leadership work. He is the co-author of the Federation’s think piece “Facing the Future: Evolution or Revolution”, which argued for creative ways to finance affordable housing. In 2014, Stuart joined the board at The Housing Finance Corporation (THFC), an independent not for profit organisation which makes loans to regulated housing associations across the UK, before resigning upon his appointment at Community Housing Cymru.Prior to joining the National Housing Federation, Stuart worked for local authorities in both Swansea and Cardiff and Southern Housing Group in London across roles in housing management, supported housing and policy and strategy.

John Tattersall
Managing Director
Centrus

John is a highly skilled corporate finance professional drawing on over 15 years’ experience across corporate banking and advisory roles covering the housing, public, and infrastructure sectors.

Jayne Owen
Finance and Resources Director
North Wales Housing

Jayne is the Finance & Resources Director at North Wales Housing.Prior to taking up this role Jayne was Director of Finance (Police and Crime) for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. This was one of several executive finance roles across both Local Government and Policing, spanning a career of over 30 years. Areas of expertise include treasury management, financial planning, audit, organisational transformation and effective governance. Jayne’s experience goes beyond financial expertise in particular, public service reform, partnership working, estates strategy, performance management, HR and IT.In current and previous roles Jayne has worked with UK and Welsh Government Departments to influence policy and resourcing challenges, including accounting and legislative changes in preparation for devolved Mayoral functions. Outside of work Jayne loves the outdoors and loves nothing more than walking in the beautiful Welsh countryside and paddleboarding on the Menai Strait.

Anna Haskins
Consultant
The Good Economy

Anna is a Consultant at The Good Economy (TGE), an impact advisory firm specialising in impact measurement, management and reporting services. TGE has a strong track record within the affordable housing sector, with clients including Funding Affordable Homes, CBRE, TriplePoint and Legal & General Affordable Homes.TGE helped lead the development of the Sustainability Report Standard for Social Housing (SRS) and continues to play a leading technical role as Secretariate to Sustainability for Housing (SfH), the body overseeing the SRS. Anna works closely with the SRS Adopter community and leads on the analysis of ESG reporting by the social housing sector.

Mike Welford
Senior Consultant and Actuary
Quantum Advisory

Mike has over 15 years’ of experience within actuarial pensions consultancy and has gained experience advising trustees and employers on day-to-day actuarial consulting matters as well as on a wide range of issues including defined benefit scheme funding, GMP equalisation, benefit rectification projects and buyout exercises.In his role at Quantum, Mike is a key member of the corporate pension team and has significant experience of working with employers who participate in SHPS, LGPS and other multi-employer schemes.

Adam West
Research Manager
Coastal Housing Group

Adam is a Professional Doctorate student at Cardiff Metropolitan University with the support of Coastal Housing Group. His research focuses upon the implementation of sustainability strategies and transitions; specifically, Coastal’s own sustainability journey. Since 2021, Adam has been responsible for the creation and implementation of Coastal’s ‘All Possible Action’ strategy, including data gathering and reporting. He is also a certified Carbon Literacy trainer.

Sion Lloyd-Jones
Senior Manager
KPMG

Sion is one of KPMGs experienced risk and resilience leaders and works alongside a team of cyber and resilience and risk management specialists. He joined KPMG after a very successful career as senior officer in the Royal Air Force spending most of his MOD career as an Intelligence, Security and Risk roles.

Since joining KPMG he has specialised in the delivery of cyber security strategy and organisational resilience transformation, closely supporting boardrooms at many types of organisations and across a wide range of sectors.

Sion also leads KPMG Cyber support to internal audit services and developing KPMGs approach to practical and proactive resilience development for businesses.
Sion is from Wrexham and covers North Wales for KPMG risk services.

Thomas Dye
Corporation Tax Specialist
KPMG

Tom is a corporation tax specialist that has worked in the sector for over 12 years. Tom is based in Cardiff and leads KPMG’s relationships with the Welsh housing clients.

Aharon Donaghy
Assistant Director
Centrus

Aharon is a corporate finance professional with 10 years of corporate banking experience across structured finance roles with a focus on operational real estate in the hotel, healthcare, education and corporate sectors.

Prior to joining Centrus, Aharon supported clients in the hotel sector with significant, emergency liquidity relief as a result of the coronavirus outbreak material impact on the sector, both on a standalone and government backed facilities.

In addition to client facing roles, Aharon spent 2 years working with the COO helping drive corporate strategy and deliver regulatory change programmes for the bank while working to develop new corporate debt products.

Clara Hurst
Senior Associate
Centrus

Clara is a Chartered Accountant (ACA) with extensive experience in both financial advisory and accounting roles across a wide client base.

Before joining Centrus, Clara worked at KPMG within the national markets audit, accounting and advisory department where she advised a range of organisations including housing, education, healthcare, charities and government entities. Her skills include Financial Analysis, Cashflow Modelling, Corporate Advisory, Valuations, Client Management, Research, Audit and Accounting.

Stuart Price
Partner
Quantum Advisory

Stuart has over 25 years’ experience of dealing with defined benefit and defined contribution pension arrangements.Stuart heads up Quantum’s corporate offering that provides a range of pension advice to Housing Associations on their standalone arrangements and multi-employer arrangements such as SHPS and LGPS and has assisted many employers in relation to corporate activity such as mergers and closing and exiting their defined benefit pension arrangements.Stuart is very passionate about employee financial awareness and is a key advocator of keeping employee communications simple and concise.

Lloyd Powell
Head of Wales
ACCA

Lloyd has worked at ACCA since 2016. His role as Head of Wales within the ACCA UK Team is to maximise ACCA’s impact in Wales, increase awareness of ACCA’s reach and scope, strengthen and shape relationships with members, employers, external partners and stakeholders, build influence, reputation and profile and to provide input into policy development. Globally, ACCA supports 252,500 members and 526,000 future members in 180 countries, helping them to develop successful careers in accounting and business, with the skills required by employers. In Wales, ACCA supports over 6,000 members and students, across all sectors of the economy and all parts of the country.Prior to joining ACCA, Lloyd worked in the University sector for over 20 years in a variety of roles, including developing and managing overseas and Wales-based teaching partnerships.

Ian Walters
Head of Regulation Strategy and Policy
Welsh Government

Paul Stevens
Managing Director
Centrus

Paul is a founder of Centrus with over 25 years of corporate banking experience gained with Lloyds and Santander and advisory experience across capital raising & restructuring, M&A, treasury and derivatives. He has advised a range of organisations across different sectors, including housing, regeneration, real estate, education, healthcare and charities.

Paul has an MBA from Henley where his final thesis focused on Corporate Social Responsibility and Effective Stakeholder Engagement.

Gerallt Jones
Partner, Head of Corporate and Commercial
Hugh James

Gerallt is a partner and head of the corporate and commercial team. Since joining Hugh James in 2005, Gerallt has led the team to be a leading player within the corporate and commercial market, advising clients including the Welsh Government, Princes Gate Water and the Development Bank of Wales.Gerallt also has particular expertise in the sport and food & drink sectors, leading Hugh James’s relationships with clients in these sectors including the Welsh Rugby Union and Braces Bakery.

Gareth Yeoman-Evans
Executive Director of Finance and Resources
Newport City Homes

Gareth joined Newport City Homes in January 2021 and is responsible for Finance and Resources.Gareth has worked in the housing, support and care sector for over 18 years, and joined us from Hafod, where he held the role of Corporate Director – Finance and Investments.Gareth has a degree in Business and Finance and qualified as an accountant in 2007. He is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.Gareth is a fluent Welsh speaker and originally comes from west Wales but has settled with his wife and two daughters in south Monmouthshire.

Gareth Yeoman-Evans
Executive Director of Finance
Coastal Housing Group

Simon qualified as an accountant in 1992 and in 1996 joined Merthyr Tydfil Housing Association as Finance Director. In 2002 he joined the then Charter Housing Group, which became Seren Group (now Pobl Group), where he was the Group Resources Director. He was heavily involved in the formation of Seren Group and in the growth of the Group during the 13 years he worked there. Simon briefly worked in private sector construction before joining Coastal in September 2016.Simon’s responsibilities included bringing new Group Members into the Group’s financial and governance arrangements, arranging the Group’s borrowings, and ensuring that capital investment decisions were fully considered. He has also held non-executive posts, as Board Member of Merlin Housing Society, the South Gloucestershire stock transfer association, on the Board of Llamau, and on the National Council of Community Housing Cymru (CHC). He continues to contribute his expertise to CHC as Chair of its Finance Strategic Delivery Group and is also a Member of the Employee Committee of the Social Housing Pension Scheme.

Arun Poobalasingam
Chief Partnerships Officer
The Housing Finance Corporation

Arun joined THFC in August 2021 as Head of Relationship Management and Business Development. He joined from HSBC where he helped set up and then led their social housing business focusing predominantly on larger housing associations. Having started his career working at Diageo, he moved to Network Rail where starting as a financial modeller he moved on to the Treasury team that raised over £20bn of debt through the Global Capital Markets during his stint. He left in 2007 to join HSBC’s real estate team at an interesting time for the sector and specialised in property for most of his time there. At THFC he is responsible for the Relationship Management team across the UK.

Andrew Lynch
Credit and Risk Manager
THFC

Andy Lynch joined THFC in 2015, having spent the previous 3 years as Head of Credit for the Public Sector (including Social Housing) at Barclays. Prior to this, Andy spent 5 years with Clydesdale & Yorkshire Bank where he was Head of Credit for the South of England, and latterly Head of Credit Training. His initial banking career was also with Barclays, where he worked for 25 years in relationship and credit roles.

Sharon Woodward
Relationship Manager
THFC

Sharon joined THFC in January 2017. She is ACA qualified, with a BSc in Chemistry & Management, and an MSc in International Business. She worked for two years with Smith & Williamson in their “recovery and reorganisation” division, before spending 5 years in a similar role at Grant Thornton. For the last 6 years she has been a Senior Analyst at RBS in their Financial Analysis Team covering among other sectors, healthcare (care homes), Retail, Pubs & Hotels, and Commercial Real Estate.

Sarah Cole
Head of Safety and Improvement Finance
Welsh Government

Sarah has been working in senior social housing finance roles for over 20 years in various organisations. She has raised finance packages, modernised teams, and improved governance and reporting. Now working as Head of Safety and Improvement in Welsh Government, she is using her extensive experience to find solutions that will support the sector to invest in developing more good quality homes and the improvement of existing homes. Luckily, she enjoys problem solving and a challenge.

Carrie Satherley
Head of Innovative Funding
Welsh Government

Amar Latif
Blind adventurer

Amar Latif is a presenter, director, entrepreneur, and blind adventurer. He is the founder of Traveleyes, a touring company specialised in supporting blind travellers, and has presented a number of documentaries, including the BBC’s critically acclaimed Beyond Boundaries.By the time he was eighteen, Amar had lost 95% of his eyesight due to an incurable condition. Determined to travel and experience the whole world despite his condition, Amar has since trekked 220 miles through Central America and climbed a 1500m active volcano. Prior to exploring the world, Amar trained as an accountant, overcoming obstacles and challenging preconceptions to work his way up to Head of Commercial Finance for BT. After realising that his passion lay in traveling, he turned to face new goals and new challenges.Amar’s determination to create a more accessible world for those with visual impairments became a reality with Traveleyes. His company gave millions of blind people the opportunity to trek through deserts, ski down some of the highest mountains, and sail across seas. He has also established initiatives and partnerships with schools around the world, raising awareness of disabilities and building relationships between sighted students and blind travellers.In recounting his remarkable story as both adventurer and entrepreneur, including the many setbacks he has encountered, Amar discusses overcoming adversity, building a resilient mindset, and how to perceive limitations. As a Scot of Asian heritage, as well as being blind, Amar examines the biases and assumptions that marginalise and exclude, and the damage done to individuals and society. He challenges how quick we are to define other with labels and expectations, and considers the inherent value, importance and advantages of diversity and inclusion.

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