Our Board

Mike is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing and his career since finishing college has always been in and around social housing. Mike says he was ‘bitten by the bug’ when he worked for the Greater London Council (GLC) in the east end of London.  It was there he was able to see the link between the work he was doing and the impact it had on people’s lives, in terms of providing them with a warm, safe and secure home.

 

Having worked for the GLC and then several London Borough Councils, Mike moved to Southend Borough Council to join their new Housing Services Department. Having been appointed as Assistant Director of Social Care, when the Council became a unitary authority and took on responsibility for social services, Mike developed the housing service to become a key part of the integrated social care offer for residents in Southend.

 

In 2005, when the Council took the decision to set up its own local housing company, Mike was appointed as the Chief Executive for the new organisation, South Essex Homes.

 

Following the organisation’s success in attracting over £50M of additional investment into the Council’s rented homes, the decision was taken to use some of the wider skills and expertise which the company had built up, to provide a wider range of services for the Council and other organisations. 

 

Consequently, South Essex Property Services was created as a new subsidiary. The Board of the new company asked Mike to join them and he has been a Director of the company since 2018. The company has gone from strength to strength, seeing a significant increase in the range and scale of services it provides, both within and outside of Southend. Mike is proud this additional role has enabled him to use his skills and experience, gained over the past few years, to add to the existing multi-skilled Board of this exciting new company.

Julie joined the Board as a non-executive director in July 2021 having worked in commercial property management for 20 years.  Prior to that Julie was an accountant for a semiconductor equipment manufacturing company for twelve years and while in this role Julie relocated the business to Edinburgh. Julie is currently an Alliance Director for CBRE, a major commercial real estate business, and leads a high profile technology account that spans EMEA.

Julie has worked within the private and public sector as client, provider and consultant and previously held board positions for Comet Consulting and OCS’ European joint venture with Gegenbauer and Onet.  Julie was previously Managing Director of OCS leading all support services and business transformation following five years as Transition Director for Johnson Controls Workplace Services EMEA.

Julie is married with two daughters, loves the great outdoors and provides a home to unwanted horses, she currently has three and has just recently gone back to horse riding.

Sacha is Group Managing Director of a property services and development company providing operational and strategic direction to the group of companies. She is an experienced leader having held a range of Executive and Non-Executive roles in the public and private sectors and brings experience of setting up a subsidiary company within a group structure combined with expertise in delivering complex business change projects.

 

Yvonne joined the Board in March 2024 with a wealth of experience. A senior finance leader with extensive experience in both public and private companies. Yvonne has worked in real estate for 15 years and is passionate about property’s part in shaping us as individuals and how it can foster communities.

Yvonne is the Group Chief Financial Officer at Huckletree (commercial real estate and hospitality). She was Financial Director at The Office Group (commercial real estate), CFO of both Scale Space (commercial real estate) & Blenheim Chalcot (venture builder) and Head of Finance, Development at Royal Mail Estates.

Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her husband, and their son Phoenix.

Paul is a qualified Building Services Engineer with over 40 years’ experience in repairs and maintenance, predominantly in the social housing sector but also in delivering wider FM services. In his early career he worked in local government before moving to national roles in the promotion of partnering in construction both with The Housing Forum and Local Government Task Force.

Paul has held board director roles with both regional and national contractors with his last role for over 9 years as a Director of Morgan Sindall Property Services. Other previous experience includes establishing and chairing the National Housing Contractors Forum, as well as a non-executive director role with a Jersey based construction company.

His career successes have mainly been focused on the sustainable growth of companies, achieved through strategic business planning, adopting innovation, and delivery of excellent customer experience. Paul is also a keen advocate of ensuring that the local communities benefit from service contracts through tailored social value initiatives.