Ian Perry, Chair

Chief Executive, Your Housing Group FRICS, MCIoB, MCIArb, MCIH, FIoD

Ian is Chief Executive and Board member of Your Housing Group, a £80m turnover leading edge group of housing associations and companies owning and managing 18,000 properties. An experienced Board Member he is Chairman of a number of for profit procurement, regeneration and housing related, property management and development companies including:-

• Grove Village, PFI - Avantage
• PFI - PHD, development organisation

A Chartered Surveyor he is a Non Executive Director of the RICS Management Board.
Ian is a member of a number of advisory panels to government agencies including the TSA Provider Panel and NAO Expert Panel on housing PFI. 


Queen Beatrix has appointed Ian as the Honorary Consul for The Netherlands in the North West.
He contributes to media, conferences and seminars throughout the UK, Europe and the USA. 
Other interests include walking, family, theatre and football.

Nigel Wilson, Vice Chair

Chief Executive, Parkway Green Housing Trust

Nigel has over 25 years experience in the housing sector. He was a housing co-operative tenant and activist before working as a housing officer for housing associations and local councils. He worked in tenant participation and resident engagement before specialising in new business and regeneration. He is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing, vice-chair of the Community Gateway Association in Preston, vice-chair of Procure Plus and vice-chair of Wythenshawe Forum Trust.

Jane McCall, Audit Committee Chair

Director of Delivery, Trafford Housing Trust

Jane McCall is the Director of Delivery at Trafford Housing Trust, a housing organisation owning approx. 9,000 homes. Jane is an Executive Director at the Trust, and has responsibility for the customer facing services across the organisation, including neighbourhoods, repairs and supported housing. Jane sits on the Executive team which has corporate responsibilities for the organisation's performance and strategic direction. Prior to Jane's appointment at THT, she was an independent consultant and worked on various aspects of housing including strategies and operational reviews.

Karen Mitchell, CSR Chair

Chief Executive, Southway Housing Trust

Karen has worked in housing for over 20 years in a number of Local Authorities within Greater Manchester. She spent 8 years in Barnsley, with the last four as Head of Housing having responsibility for landlord and strategic housing functions and where she went on to lead the set up of an ALMO, Berneslai Homes. Karen joined Eastlands Homes in 2003 as the Director of Neighbourhood Services and moved to Southway Housing Trust to complete the transfer process in Summer 2007. Karen is committed to developing a customer focused organisation that makes the most of the skills and talents of its staff, partners and local residents.

Mark Hudson, Chair Core Group

Director of Technical Services, Stockport Homes

Mark has worked within the construction and housing industry for around 30 years. Mark started as an Apprentice Joiner and moved up through the ranks covering many disciplines within the private sector managing and designing numerous construction projects and became a member of the Chartered Institute of Building. Mark is responsible for the Capital Investment Programme, the Repairs Service and the New Build Property Programme at Stockport Homes.

As a founder Director of Procure Plus, he was influential in its set-up and continues to play a pivotal role in the strategic leadership and is the Chair of the Core Operational Group for the consortium. Mark is committed to continually providing and delivering the highest quality and innovative services to customers.

Mike Birkett, Lancashire Housing Partnership

Chief Executive, Calico

Mike has been Chief Executive of Calico since 2006 and prior to this was Director of Housing and Regeneration. Before joining Calico he was employed in senior positions with Aspire Housing Group and Liverpool Housing Action Trust. He is the Vice Chair of South Liverpool Housing Group Ltd, a Governor of Burnley College and the Chair and Director of Lancashire Housing Partnership Ltd.

Stephanie Murphy, Cumbria Housing Partners

Chief Executive, Two Castles Housing Association

Stephanie has 29 years experience in housing, with 21 of those being at a senior level. She was appointed Chief Executive of Two Castles in October 2005. Stephanie has extensive experience of business planning, governance and service improvement. She has a particular interest in rural housing issues. She joined the Procure Plus Board in November 2009 as the Cumbria Housing Partners representative and also serves on the Nomination and Staffing Committee. She has a degree from Manchester University and membership of the Chartered Institute of Housing.

Ellen Whittle

Tenant Involvement Panel Chair

Ellen is a former nurse who started her career at Wythenshawe Hospital. Ellen has been Chair of the neighbourhood network and is also a Key Individual Network member for Greater Manchester Police.

Ellen first became interested in social housing after attending 'The Big Listen' ay City South Housing Trust. Over the years she has been an active member on local panels and regeneration groups.

Ellen is currently working towards the Chartered Institute of Housing Level 3 Award in Resident Scrutiny. 

Dave Power

Chief Executive, City South Manchester Housing Trust

Dave Power joined as a Board Director in August 2010 and brings over 30 years experience in housing and regeneration to Procure Plus.

He was appointed Chief Executive of City South Manchester Housing Trust in April 2008. This award-winning new housing association owns 4500 properties in inner south Manchester and is responsible for the investment of 100m in home improvements and community regeneration. 
City South recently won the Northern TPAS award for Best Practice in Youth Involvement, and Green Apple and Home Improvement Council awards for its multi-million pound transformation of four tower blocks in Hulme.

Previously Dave worked for the London Borough of Southwark in estate management and Manchester City Council's Neighbourhood Services unit. He was the Director of Planning and Quality Management for Liverpool Housing Trust, particularly focussing on change management and improvement.

He was Group Head of Policy and Strategy for the Places for People Group, leading a business planning and strategy implementation and ten group companies and as their Neighbourhood Services Director was responsible nationally for asset management, regeneration and neighbourhood services.

He was a Director of Impact Manchester until 2010 and is a Trustee of the Powerhouse Moss Side, and a Governor at St Marys School, Moss Side. He has also been appointed as the Area Co-ordinator representing RPs in the Central Manchester Single Regeneration Framework.

Eugene Wilson

Director of Property Services, Rochdale Boroughwide Housing

Eugene joined Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) in August 2002. Eugene brings 37 years of experience in Construction and Property Maintenance field, having worked for medium sized and national building contractors and then Rochdale Council's Technical Services Department where his last position was Chief Quantity Surveyor. He qualified as a surveyor in 1979 and became a Charted Surveyor in 1983. He established and managed the team that delivered RBH's Major Investment Programme between 2002 and 2006.

At RBH he has lead responsibility for implementing the housing investment programme, for asset management, the strategic management of the in-house repairs service and managing a range of central repair functions, including central hearing servicing, alarm installations, CCTV, transport and the central stores function. He also has lead responsibility for Health and Safety within the Company including asbestos and Legionella management. Between 2006 and 2008 Eugene was National President of the Society of Construction and Quantity Surveyors and is currently a member of the RICS Quantity Surveying and Construction Group Board.

Ian Brown

Head of Corporate Procurement, Manchester City Council

Ian was appointed as the Head of Corporate Procurement within Manchester City Council in April 2007 and is also the Procurement Director for the North West Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership.

Ian's work includes delivering significant savings through smarter procurement and using the Council's substantial buying power to maximise social, economic and environmental benefits for local communities.

The key strands of the Regional Procurement Strategy are to:-

• Deliver significant savings through collaborative procurement achieved by a fully mature management of local government third party spend
• Increase understanding of the impact of procurement decisions on local economics
• Promote sustainable procurement, realising benefits not only to local authorities and their partners but also society and the economy, while minimising damage to the environment
• Increase engagement with the voluntary and community sector in the provision of services
• Improve procurement skills across the region
• Increase the use of e-procurement

Joe Willis

Deputy Chief Executive, Salix Homes

Joe deputises for the Chief Executive in providing strategic and business leadership for Salix Homes. He also has operational responsibility for the day to day maintenance of their property portfolio, their investment and regeneration programmes and the care and support of their customers.

Before joining Salix Homes in June 2007 Joe worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers in their public sector consultancy team and prior to that spent over 20 years working for local authorities in Greater Manchester in a wide range of housing and regeneration roles.

Martin Vickers

Paul Roberts

Director of Finance, Guinness Northern Counties

Paul joined Guinness Northern Counties in August 2009 as the Assistant Director of Finance and became the Director of Finance in July 2010.

Prior to joining in August 2009 Paul had a varied career across the private and third sectors including Finance Director for a start up youth education company. He has also worked in Finance and Information Technology at Kelloggs, a small/medium enterprise in the aerospace industry and British Gas.

Steve Partner

Group Assistant Director for Asset Management

Steve has worked in the housing sector for some 37 years, starting his career in Grimsby, moving on the work in the North West at Blackpool in the 1980s, and then on to north Wales where he was a local authority Housing and Property Director for some 16 years.

During his time in Wales, he was appointed as Housing Advisor to the Welsh Local Government Association, worked closely with the Welsh Federation of Housing Associations and also represented Welsh interests on the LGA Housing Advisers panel, meeting with Senior Government Ministers and civil servants on a regular basis. He was also involved in liaising with European social housing colleagues through contacts with the European Federation of Social, Cooperative and Public Housing, CECHODAS in Brussels.

Taking a decision to move in to the Housing Association sector, he started with Contour Housing Group in 2007, initially as Head of Maintenance and his role quickly expanded to take in all Asset Management Services across the former Contour Housing Group.

Following the recent merger between Contour and Vicinity Housing Groups to form Symphony Housing Group, he is involved in close working with Asset Management colleagues across the new Group to build on the resources and strengths provided by creation of Symphony.