Our Board and Committees

Steve is currently chair of Incommunities’ Board and has worked in housing for over 40 years, including 30 years as a chief executive.

He is committed to the provision of affordable housing and support for people in need and has a range of experience including leadership, strategic planning, change management, team building, delivering results, and innovation. He is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing and has an MBA from Leeds University Business School.

Steve recently retired as chief executive of Together Housing which managed over 38,00 homes across the north of England and the Midlands.

He has experience of Board membership at a number of organisations including a BME association and has been an appointee a mainstream association and supported housing provider.

Ade is Head of Real Estates Major Projects at the Department of Work and Pensions and has over 25 years’ experience in property, regeneration, housing, and local economic development.

He is a trustee of the Architectural Heritage Fund, the UK’s largest social investor in creating new futures for historic buildings, and previously held Non Executive Director (NED) appointments as Chair of Northwards Housing and Vice-Chair of Salix Homes.

Mushtaq is a highly regarded solicitor and former president of the Birmingham Law Society. He is head of litigation and governance at a large local authority and prior to this was in private practice, including as partner and head of department at commercial law firm Freeths.  He has worked with a wide range of enterprises spanning the private, public and third sector. 

Mushtaq is Chair of the Performance Committee and Board director (Non-Executive) at the West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust.

Juliette is an experienced economist and business expert and is currently working on strategic planning for the Bank of England having moved to Yorkshire as the bank’s agent in 2011. As an agent Juliette worked with Yorkshire businesses across all sectors, including housing, to provide an aggregate view of economic and financial prospects for the Bank’s Monetary Policy and Financial Stability Committees ahead of policy decisions. 

Other non-policy roles have included HR, external communications and stints working on economic policy at HM Treasury and the International Monetary Fund.

Juliette is strong on strategic and critical thinking and is passionate about providing good social housing.  She is a trustee for St Leonards Hospice and treasurer of Bootham School in York.

 

Tansy has extensive experience in risk management, business planning, treasury, governance and regulation in the public and private sector.

She qualified as a chartered accountant with Arthur Young (now Ernst & Young) and spent 12 years working in financial services, ultimately as Head of Group Financial Risk Management at Halifax plc. She then moved into the not-for-profit sector as a Director of Regulation for the Housing Corporation (now Regulator of Social Housing) before becoming Resources Director at Yorkshire Housing, where she spent 11 years before retiring in 2016.

Tansy has served as a Board member and Chair of Audit and Risk for Regenda Group and Manningham Housing Association. Tansy was appointed to Incommunities’ Group Board and Audit and Risk Committee, which she now chairs, in September 2018.

Julie was born and educated in Bradford and lives in the city. Julie has a Masters degree in Finance and Accountancy and is a qualified accountant. She joined Incommunities as a board member in September 2019 after retiring from her role as Deputy Chief Officer/Chief Finance Officer for the three NHS Bradford District and Craven Clinical Commissioning Groups.

Julie brings a wealth of experience of working across the Bradford system and is passionate about improving housing and lives in our local community and surrounding areas.

Julie is also a non-executive at Bradford Hospitals NHS Trust and is non-executive chair of the Bradford District and Craven Partnership Finance and Performance Committee.

Cath Owston has worked in the housing sector for over thirty years holding a variety of senior leadership positions across the North-West and Yorkshire. Most recently, she was Executive Director of Customer Experience at Yorkshire Housing where she was responsible for a wide portfolio of customer service teams.

Cath is passionate to ensure a strong leadership vision is combined with effective customer engagement and insight to improve customer experience. She is an experienced NED and qualified leadership coach and NLP practitioner. 

John has a background in retail and corporate banking. He has worked as a Branch Manager, Commercial and Corporate Relationship Manager and the last 10 years of his career were based in the bank’s turnaround department working with corporate customers experiencing trading difficulties.

John’s involvement with social housing predates his retirement and prior to his appointment with Incommunities he worked with two other associations as a NED on Group Board and Audit and Development Committees.

He is very committed to social housing and considers himself a critical friend of Incommunities and its endeavours to be a provider of quality homes to its customers.  

Abdul has over 30 years’ experience of procuring affordable housing and sustaining places, as well as extensive experience of local government, charity and third sector environments. He currently works at the Abbeyfield Society overseeing development and asset management and worked previously with the Housing Corporation/Homes & Communities Agency. 

Abdul has considerable NED experience – including as Vice Chair of Manningham Housing Association, Chair of Firebird, and board member of Unity Enterprise and Johnnie Johnson Housing Trust. Abdul is a member of the National Housing Federation’s Delivering Great Homes Group shaping policy solutions with government. 

He co-founded the ‘Ageing Well Network’ and is a member of Muslim Council of Britain’s Research and Documentation Committee.  

Kanika is a motivated non-executive director, with a passion to ensure that communities in the north are well equipped with homes, neighbourhoods and support that builds resilience to future challenges.

Through her career as a technical change practitioner, she offers a strong understanding of customer engagement, holding a background in public, private and third sector Yorkshire organisations.

She offers a diverse perspective, brought about through lived experience as a BAME woman in technical leadership, combined with her work as Director of Change in 'Tech for Good' start-ups. She has held EDI ‘lead’ roles at board level, delivers mentoring, and has experience of founding diversity employee networks and building new talent pipelines.