Claire is Development manager at pioneer Housing group.
Christabell is CEO at the Highlife Centre in Coventry – a dynamic social enterprise supporting people who face disadvantage and barriers of all kinds. The Highlife Centre provides youth leadership development and promotes community cohesion and social inclusion through arts, culture and heritage events/activities. They provide training and support to community businesses and individuals looking to start their own organisation. They also run the creative, cultural business centre WAVA Hall.
Christabell is also the proprietor of BlueMint Consulting and Trustee of Coventry Peace House and the Albany Theatre.
Akwasi is an academic with over 15 years experience of teaching varied accounting modules. He is currently a Senior Teaching Fellow at Birmingham City University and an Associate Tutor in Accounting at the University of London. He is also a fully qualified finance executive who has held a variety of business development/commercial management and financial management duties within the BBC, in the private sector and previously for the Orbit Group, where he developed financial models for housing schemes.
David is Emeritus Professor of Housing Policy at the University of Birmingham. He has undertaken extensive research on community-led housing in England and internationally; including a long standing action research collaboration with Self-Help Housing.Org demonstrating the benefits of community-led reactivation of empty homes. In July 2018 he organised the Hope for Housing research conference in Birmingham which helped found wMUCH. He has been involved at governance level in a number of housing associations in the West Midlands and is currently a board member of Cluid Housing, the largest housing association in Ireland.
Group Chief Executive
Nigel is Group Chief Executive of Trident Group, which he joined in September 2023. He is passionate about the social purpose of housing associations and that the voice of tenants is firmly at the heart of this. He has experience supporting the work of the National Housing Federation, Northern Housing Consortium and Housing Association Charitable Trust at board level.
Karen was previously Head of Service- Neighbourhood Development and Support Unit (NDSU) at Birmingham City Council and deeply passionate about the role communities can play in creating stronger, more vibrant communities and neighbourhoods. She has now retired but continues to play a key role in supporting local communities and community development in Birmingham.
Pete is the Chief Executive of Bournville Village Trust and a lifelong community led housing activist. A former chair of Birmingham’s Social Housing Partnership and commissioner of Birmingham Poverty Truth, Pete led Pioneer Group (formerly Castle Vale Community Housing Association) for 20 years before joining BVT. He also worked for Sanctuary Housing Association, William Sutton Trust (now Clarion Housing Group) and Walsall and Birmingham Local Authorities.
Roger has almost 30 years involvement as Councillor in Wolverhampton (retiring May 2021) and as an urban policy and community development professional. He was previously leader of Wolverhampton Council, where he helped establish their wholly owned housing company. He has held roles on regional and sub-regional planning committees, has been a supporter of the Brownfield Institute, was a founder member of the Combined Authority and Chaired a local social enterprise. He was previously a community worker in Sandwell for 15 years.
Shanti joined the board in 2023, and has a long track record working for community and housing organisations in the West Midlands. Shanti worked in many roles within youth homelessness charity St Basils, including as Head of Housing Management and Property Services, before going onto become Head of Housing and Support at Urban Sky Housing Association and then Housing Options UK. She also co-ordinated the Windrush Generations project within the Library of Birmingham, celebrating 70 years of Birmingham’s Caribbean Communities.
Based in Dudley borough, David also joined the WMUCH board in 2023 and brings broad operational and organisational experience to us, having worked in a broad range of sectors – with youth, education, charities, small businesses and in the corporate world. He has worked as Head of Young People Engagement at The Midcounties Cooperative, as Regional Director for Business in the Community, and co-founder and CEO of PLANit Global. Currently, he is a director at Digital Badge IT CIC.
If you would like to see community led housing flourish in the West Midlands, we’d love to hear from you! Talk to us about how to get involved, how we can help you or how we could work together.
We are a Community Benefit Society Registration number: 8098
