Our Board is drawn from across the sustainable housing ecosystem and brings together leaders with deep, collective experience of the sector’s successes and challenges. Providing strategic oversight, they help steer SHAP’s work, ensuring it responds to sector needs and remains relevant, credible and impactful.
Ellie is the Assistant Director and strategic lead on Net Zero for Birmingham City Council, leading the Route to Net Zero team, as well as developing and facilitating a wide portfolio of projects and initiatives to deliver the council’s Climate Emergency ambitions. With 20 years of consultancy experience in global and start-up businesses, Ellie has led a wide range of decarbonisation projects and programmes for the public and private sectors.
A housing professional of many years, Steve is passionate about sustainable housing and has a long-standing career in the private, public and voluntary sectors. With a wealth of expertise, experience and knowledge of the practical challenges in delivering large-scale energy schemes to housing, Steve has a particular interest and focus on how the development and delivery of sustainable housing results in real and tangible benefits to the lives of the people living in the properties.
Gemma is a Project Surveyor at Orbit, a qualified retrofit coordinator, retrofit assessor, domestic energy assessor and BREEAM associate. She is also currently studying a part-time masters at Loughborough University in low energy building services engineering. She is part of the project team who have been successful in bids for the SHDF demonstrator, wave 1 and wave 2, with her main role focusing on bid creation and property modelling. Gemma was a finalist in HQN’s Next Generation Competition and is passionate about sustainability within the built environment.
Becks is Head of Sustainability at Equans, working closely with local authorities, housing associations and third-sector clients on formulating decarbonisation strategies for their housing stock. Becks has over a decade’s worth of experience in the housing retrofit industry, having led on numerous CESP, ECO and SHDF projects, and is passionate about driving an area-based approach to housing retrofit, particularly those in the most deprived communities, and at risk of fuel poverty.
Carl is the Regional Refurbishment Director at Lovell and has overall responsibility for securing and delivering refurbishment schemes across the wider Midlands region. Passionate about installing and delivering customer-focused projects at scale and pace, Carl brings over 25 years of experience working within the Construction Industry. He has specific social housing experience in new-build housing, planned maintenance, retrofit, renewables, high-rise refurbishment, fire safety, re-modelling and rooftop development.
Gordon has 20+ years experience including nine years working as a sustainability lead in the social housing sector, where he delivered a range of retrofit projects, working with both funders and households. He also led several fuel poverty initiatives and was active in cross-landlord work to decarbonise housing. Gordon is currently Technical Manager – Low Carbon at the Energy Saving Trust and leads a team which delivers projects for Government, public sector and commercial clients with a strong focus on housing decarbonisation.
Sam is Head of Policy Insights and Engagement at Gemserv. Sam specialises in energy policy development and stakeholder engagement in the built environment sector. She has worked with clients across the sustainable energy and decarbonisation sector including housing providers, manufacturers and local and national government, helping shape the policy debate and communicate complex policy to a range of stakeholders. Sam has a First-class BSc (Hons) in Environment, Economics and Ecology from the University of York.
Our Emerging Leaders
Our Emerging Leaders Board brings together a diverse group of professionals, united by a shared commitment to the sustainable housing agenda and an appetite to grow their leadership practice, while actively contributing their insight and experience to SHAP’s work.
Monica is a Senior Lecturer in Built Environment at the School of Engineering and the Built Environment. She teaches building design, production, sustainability, research and innovation. Monica has taken part in various public funded projects as well as Industry-University projects, in which she has been principal investigator. Her research outputs have been published in leading scientific and construction sector journals and disseminated in national and international conferences.
Gemma is the Delivery Manager in Together Housing’s Net Zero Team, responsible for the successful delivery of all Retrofit and Renewable Heat investment programmes, government and internally funded works, responsive insulations and all renewable heat installations. Having a varied background from a Law degree to being a plumber, a property surveyor and a Retrofit Co-ordinator, Gemma brings wide-ranging expertise. Committed to creating a sustainable environment, Gemma also serves as a Director for Community Energy Preston in her spare time.
Peter is Progress Housing Group’s Sustainability & Environmental Officer, assisting in the delivery of all retrofit programmes including acting as a tenant liaison and modelling retrofit measures. Prior to this, Peter completed a Msc in Environmental Practice at Manchester Metropolitan University. With an academic background consisting of GIS, Peter has a keen interest in new and upcoming technologies that can be used in retrofitting social housing properties.
