Our Executive Team

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.

Adam is the Director of Resources at 54North Homes, previously having held the same role with Leeds & Yorkshire Housing Association. This involves being the strategic lead for Finance, IT, HR, Comms, Risk and Governance. Adam has worked in Social Housing Finance for 20 years, starting his career with Anchor, a national provider of housing for Older People.

About the merger and integration, he says: “I’m really looking forward to building strong links within 54North Homes (54N) and across the Karbon Group so that our teams can provide an excellent support service to the organisation and our operational colleagues”.

In addition to his role with 54N, Adam is a Board Member and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee at Berneslai Homes, an ALMO in Barnsley. He also chairs the National Housing Federation’s Finance Network in Yorkshire and the Humber.

Joanna is our Director of Assets & Growth. She has over twenty-five years’ experience in development within the housing sector. Prior to joining 54North Homes Joanna worked for a number of other housing associations both in London and Yorkshire.

She joined the organisation 10 years ago and during that time has led our ambitious growth programme which has seen over 450 new homes delivered and a further 225 planned over the next few years. Joanna also has strategic responsibility for assets and compliance and is leading our response to the climate emergency and the retrofit of our homes.

Out of work she has three sons and enjoys the outdoors, music and cooking.

Gavin is our Director of Customer Experience, leading housing and customer services, as well as our business improvement function.

Gavin has a lead role overseeing the merger to form 54North Homes. His previous experience includes five years overseeing customer experience at Leeds and Yorkshire Housing Association. Prior to that he held a number of senior roles across Yorkshire and the North West, from which he has gained a breadth of experience of leading teams through change. A Yorkshireman born and bred, Gavin and family now live over the hills in Manchester.