Broadland Housing Group

Homes, community & support since 1963

Board and leadership

Richard Alexander

Richard Alexander, board member, Broadland Housing Association

Richard began his career in the engineering office at Associated British Ports, Lowestoft. He prepared drawings, engineering documents, tenders and contracts for various works within the port estate.

He joined Norfolk County Council in 1989, where he spent 18 years. He worked as a Highways Development Control Officer and later with the Waste Management Team, looking after the county’s recycling centres.

Richard retired from his role as Service Manager for Suffolk Coastal and Waveney District Councils in 2017. He had represented both authorities on joint venture and partnership boards for outsourced services, including waste and recycling collections, the management and operation of leisure centres, and asset management of council properties.

More recently Richard completed a short term with Great Yarmouth Borough Council in the Planning and Growth Team. This looked at vacant commercial and domestic properties within the Borough and how best to encourage the owners to return them to use/occupation.

I believe that a society should provide some form of social housing and that it fulfils a vitally important sector of the housing provision. The opportunity for people to rent good quality properties coupled with a regulated and fair system of rent increase is essential.

Judith Elliott

Judith Elliott, board member, Broadland Housing Association

Judith is an experienced HR leader and Executive Coach. She is the Director of elconsulting and a Fellow of the CIPD.

elconsulting is a leadership training and coaching company. It supports managers and top teams in both global companies and smaller, high-growth organisations across all sectors. Judith has supported senior clinical leaders in the NHS and senior academics at the University of Cambridge, as well as entrepreneurs with big ideas.  She had a long career with the John Lewis Partnership before starting her own company and starting a family at the same time.

Martin Keats

Martin Keats, board member, Broadland Housing Association

Martin started his career in the Royal Navy as a radio operator. He specialised in tactical communications and coded signals for the manoeuvring of ships in company at sea, via flag hoists and flashing light and voice.

Later when Martin was working in local government, his extensive communications and computer skills and experience led to him becoming a lead IT officer. He also worked closely with local police and social services, project managing and integrating their communications needs and those of the local council. 

Martin’s early career means he takes a keen interest in homelessness, especially for armed forces veterans who can often feel they are a non-priority for housing.  Martin currently volunteers for the Royal British Legion as a committee member. 

Martin is a shared ownership tenant and looks forward to learning more about the social housing sector as a whole. He feels that he can bring a different perspective to the Board as a tenant, and looks forward to shaping the future policy and direction of the Association. 

Michael Finister-Smith

Michale Finister-Smith, Board member, Broadland Housing Association

Mike is currently employed as a non-executive director at Ongo Partnership Ltd, a social housing provider based in Lincolnshire, where he also serves as Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee. Mike is also a non-executive director at Nottingham Community Housing Association, and a member of its Audit and Risk committee.

Before Mike took early retirement, he was an experienced and successful executive director, with over 15 years’ experience on housing association executive management teams, reporting directly to the chief executive and the board of directors. 

He has 7 years’ experience as a specialist housing consultant, including the creation of new housing associations to acquire former local authority properties. He was the project manager and lead advisor for the largest single housing stock transfer in England at the time.  

Mike replaced Jon Barber as Chair of Broadland’s Group Audit and Risk Committee at our 2020 Annual General Meeting.

Iain Grieve

Iain Grieve, Broadland Housing Association

Iain joined Broadland in October 2019 as Executive Finance Director. He was previously Director of Financial Services at Catalyst Housing, one of the London’s largest housing associations. During his time in this role, Iain was part of the working party that helped Catalyst regain the regulator’s highest governance rating and significantly enhanced the customer-focus and reporting capability of the finance function. He also created and embedded a high-performing procurement function which delivered compliance with OJEU regulations and tangible value for money savings.  

Iain trained as an accountant with Grant Thornton in Norwich and joined Circle Housing as an Internal Auditor. He held several other posts at Circle Housing including Head of Internal Audit, Group Financial Controller and Director of Business Support, which was responsible for implementing and running a shared service division comprising of Finance, HR, IT and Facilities Management Teams and indirectly managing over 200 staff.

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