Our Board

Steve has wide experience of housebuilding development, project management, finance, IT, risk management and corporate social responsibility. He is an MBA qualified Chartered Accountant.

As well as chairing 54North Homes, Steve is a non-executive board member of Karbon Homes 54North’s parent and serves on the Group Audit & Risk Committee.

Steve worked for McCarthy & Stone, Britain's leading Retirement Living housing developer, for 24 years with his last 13 years as Regional Managing Director in the North. He led on the project ‘Transforming our Customer Experience'. McCarthy & Stone are industry leaders with 13+ years 5* status recommendation from their customers.

Since 2018 Steve has been building a portfolio of work comprising retirement housing consultancy, executive mentoring and non-exec roles including Tang Hall Smart CIC, Tang Hall Employment Charity, a SME housebuilder and two construction tech businesses. He chairs the York Property Forum which is part of the Chamber of Commerce. Steve is a Non-Executive Board Member at Johnnie Johnson Housing and chairs their Asset & Investment Committee.

Ulfat is Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Operations of Manningham Housing Association with specific responsibility for the delivery of housing management, maintenance, and asset management services, as well as the strategic lead for HR, ensuring the highest level of customer satisfaction.

Ulfat has over 17 years of senior management experience at both small and large housing associations.  A Fellow Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing, Ulfat is passionate about ensuring the professionalism of the social housing sector and putting tenants at the heart of everything we do. 

Gill is Chair of P3 Housing, a Karbon Homes Board Member and also a Board Member of the newly formed 54 North Homes.

She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing and has worked in social housing for over 35 years.  Before retiring in 2019, Gill spent 12 years as Director of Housing and Customer Services at Nottingham City Homes(NCH).  Gill joined the Executive of NCH at a time of turbulence and her commitment to performance management saw the organisation's fortunes turn around.  In 2018 they were named Social Landlord of the Year at the national housing awards.

Gill has extensive experience in all areas of housing management and also has a wealth of experience of partnership working including crime and disorder, and taking the company lead for health, serving on the Nottingham Health and Wellbeing Board and Nottinghamshire STP Housing Group. Her involvement with the Corporate Parenting Board led to her fostering teenagers for almost 10 years. 

Gill spent a number of years as a Neighbourhood Renewal Advisor for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Gill has been on the Boards of a number of organisations including Nottingham School Trust, NCH Enterprise Limited and Click Nottingham, as well as serving as a school governor for over a decade.  

Gill is passionate about social housing and the role housing plays in making a real and lasting difference to the communities the organisation serves. Gill is committed to giving customers a voice and believes putting them at the heart of decision making is key to improving service delivery. Gill is excited to be part of the new 54North Homes Board and to making the most of the opportunities for new development and transformational service delivery available to the new organisation.  

Paul is the Group Chief Executive of Karbon Homes.

He trained as a chartered accountant with Price Waterhouse before joining Sunderland Football Club in 1992, becoming Company Secretary and General Manager.

Paul first joined the social housing sector as a board member in 1993 and has held a variety of senior roles in housing since then.

 Paul is currently Chair of the Northern Housing Consortium and a Placeshapers board member. He is also Chair of the Retrofit Steering Group of the North East England Climate Coalition and was until recently Chair of Clanmil Housing Association based in Northern Ireland.

Being a board member who is also a customer (at Catherine's Walk in Barnsley), Juanita brings a unique perspective to the board. As a disabled person, she is an advocate for the importance of equality and diversity, as well as affordable, good-quality housing.

She is particularly concerned about the wellbeing of the more vulnerable members of society, and welcomes the opportunity to contribute to 54North Homes work with communities, strengthening our customer-centric culture and providing gold-standard customer service.

Juanita has a background in real estate, as well as having spent a few years in the NHS corporate environment. She was appointed to the board of LYHA in April 2022, and then to the 54N board on the merger of the two organisations. Juanita is a member of our Customer Service Committee.

Shahida’s background is a mix of executive coaching, training and development with a track record in designing and delivering innovative training programmes, strategic business development, and performance improvement. She has also conducted external evaluations for organisations to greater understand the impact they make.

Working with individuals and organisations to ensure they are constantly developing, progressing and reaching their goals is really important for Shahida. Her approach is very much about understanding the work and culture of the group, thereby enabling and empowering clients to fully engage in leadership/organisational development for the future.

Shahida is also currently Associate NED at Calderdale and Huddersfield Solutions Ltd and has been NED and then Chair of Enable2, a Bradford-based social enterprise providing language and translation services across the UK.

Customer involvement is incredibly important for Shahida and she wants to continue to ensure that the customer voice is heard in a way which has real impact on how 54North Homes operates.

In her spare time, Shahida enjoys mountaineering, rock climbing, keeping fit, and spending as much time as possible with her family.

Jeremy Earnshaw has over 30 years of Main Board Executive and Non-Executive Director experience in both private and public sector organisations. His Executive roles included 7 years as Chief Financial Officer with Your Housing Group in the Regulated Housing Sector, together with two PLC CFO positions and CFO posts in Private Equity and Venture Capital-backed organisations. 

Jeremy is now a Non-Executive Director at four organisations, including a global FMCG business, a fully listed PLC Property Development company, and an Early-Stage e-commerce technology organisation. 

He complements his wide technical and Board experience with a passion for people development. He is a qualified Coach & Mentor at the highest level with the Institute of Leadership & Management, and delivers Executive Education in the areas of Finance, MBA, Leadership, Strategy, Board Development and Corporate Governance.

Jeremy focuses his experience at 54North Homes upon delivering social value alongside commercial success, and is excited to be part of a diverse Board in the critical Social Housing Sector.

Matt is a digital service design specialist. He has worked with a wide range of organisations in sectors including government, media, telecoms, retail and energy. As service transformation director in NHS England, he currently leads on digital for urgent and emergency care.

Matt has lived and worked in Leeds for more than 20 years, and was volunteer host of the annual design thinking and innovation event Leeds GovJam.

Knowing that a decent, warm home is one of the biggest contributors to good health, Matt is inspired by 54North Homes' commitment to create more new homes in Yorkshire and to involve customers in improving the services we provide for them and their communities.

Natasha is CEO at Better Connect, a non-profit organisation that leads programmes which aim to create a Yorkshire where every person is empowered to thrive in their life and work. She has previously worked for charities and social enterprises and she has been an entrepreneur, all with the aim of supporting the growth of people and businesses across Yorkshire.

Natasha completed an MBA at Leeds University in 2016, where she is now a leader in residence. She was appointed to be Regional Entrepreneur Director for NatWest supporting and helping to coach hundreds of entrepreneurs in accelerators across the North to start, scale and succeed.  Natasha has both a banking and legal background.  She worked as a banking lawyer at Walker Morris and she was Regional Sales Director and Client Services Director at Lloyds Bank.

Natasha was appointed trustee in 2021 for Trust Leeds and is on the board of Chain Lane Community Hub. She is a committee member of the Employment and Skills Committee in West Yorkshire Combined Authority and a steering group member of the North Yorkshire VCSE sector Health and Care Assembly. 

Natasha plays football for Leeds City Lasses and Harrogate Railway Reserves and coaches under 10 girl’s football.  Natasha is a proud mum of two children and lives in Harrogate.

Dave has had a forty year career in Local Government. He spent the early part of his career in social care, culminating in being in charge of Hull City Council's safeguarding services.  Twenty years ago, Dave began managing local government regeneration and housing services in Leeds and he has subsequently worked as the Director of Housing at Rotherham and Hull Councils before taking on the role of Chief Executive at St Leger Homes; the Doncaster Council's ALMO (arm’s length management organisation).

Perhaps not surprising for someone with a professional background in social care, Dave sees housing services not only in asset terms but more so in terms of  the wellbeing of tenants. He is very customer centric and during his time in charge at Hull not only was the authority deemed the ‘Strategic Housing Service of the Year’ at the prestigious CIH UK Housing awards, but the service was also the first in the country to be awarded Exemplar Status by the Tenant Participation Advisory Service (TPAS).  

Outside of work, Dave is a keen touring cyclist and real ale enthusiast, interests he tends to combine on an annual cycling tour (although not entirely simultaneously), which has seen him make trips to the Outer Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland, The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. For 2024, he is hoping to cycle with his wife from Leeds to Istanbul. Promising that they will do the trip in luxury, Dave has upgraded his tent!

Mark is our Managing Director. He has worked in social housing for over 25 years, managing all areas of housing management throughout his career. He is a fully qualified housing professional and a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing.

Mark joined LYHA in December 2017, starting as the Director of Customer Services/ Deputy CEO before taking up the role of Chief Executive in March 2018. More recently, Mark was appointed to the role of Managing Director of 54North Homes when Leeds & Yorkshire Housing Association merged with York Housing Association to create the Yorkshire based subsidiary of Karbon Homes.  He is responsible for strategic direction and providing effective leadership to ensure that the organisation is well governed and achieves excellent outcomes.

Before joining our team, Mark worked at Muir Group Housing, in Chester, as Assistant Director of Communities and Customer Service.  This involved overall responsibility for the housing services teams across several offices, as well as the supported housing and customer services teams.

Mark is passionate about achieving high levels of both customer and staff engagement and satisfaction and strives for improvements.

Mark is responsible for dealing with consumer standards.

Mark is married with two young daughters, one of whom is autistic. Owing to this, he has a genuine interest in neurodiversity. He is also a lifelong Liverpool FC fan and music lover that likes to attend as many gigs as family life now allows.