Karbon Board & Executive

Prior to the creation of Karbon Homes, Paul served as Group Chief Executive of the Isos Group. He had previously been Deputy Chief Executive from 1st October 2014 when Cestria Housing became a part of the Isos Housing Group. Paul joined Cestria Housing as Chief Executive in April 2011.

Before Cestria, Paul was Group Director of Finance and Corporate Services at Fabrick Housing Group (now part of the Thirteen Group).

Paul trained as an accountant with Price Waterhouse and qualified in 1990. Paul joined Sunderland Football Club in 1992, initially as Financial Controller, before progressing to General Manager and Club Secretary. His first full-time job in housing was with Enterprise 5 in 1996, where he became Director of Finance and Development. He had been a board member of a housing association while at SAFC, and had felt a real connection with the values of the sector and has been involved in housing ever since.

She is responsible for developing and delivering a vision of modern customer service delivery; bringing together all of our front line, customer-facing operational teams to ensure a common focus, shared culture and integrated team working for the benefit of customers.

Previously, Jo had a 20-year career with Sage Group Plc initially as Director of Marketing, then Managing Director of the Small Business Division in the UK, followed by a period as Managing Director for the Small Business Division in France, before being appointed as Group Director of Customer Experience.

Jo has extensive experience of business transformation and cultural change across a number of business areas and international businesses, and considerable experience of making modernising customer service delivery, improving communications, and customer and staff engagement.

Jo also has a strong regional profile, and has sat on a small number of Boards as a non-executive including Gateshead College and Business Link North East. She is currently a Board Member of the Trading Board of the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.

She is responsible for growing the business and its reputation. Charlotte manages the property development and asset management areas of the business, along with aspects of strategy development, planning, PR, communications, and leadership of Prince Bishops Homes. She is also responsible for ensuring that Karbon gathers and uses customer insights and intelligence to develop market services, positioning the organisation as a preferred partner and a leader in its field – regionally and nationally.

Previously, Charlotte worked in economic development and regeneration including serving as Head of Policy and Research with One North East and interim Director of The Northern Way, a collaborative initiative between three regional development agencies to increase the economic productivity of the North of England. Most recently, Charlotte worked for Home Group for seven years, where she was appointed as Transformation Consultant in 2009 and went on to hold roles as Director of Strategy and Innovation and Director of Strategy, Policy and Communications.

In addition, Charlotte has also led transformational projects and culture change and been responsible for external stakeholder relationships including with local and national government, business and regulators.

Charlotte has been a Council member for the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) North East and a Trustee with the Ouseburn Valley Regeneration Trust.

He is responsible for the design and delivery of a transformation programme; to ensure that the former housing associations that amalgamated to form Karbon Homes come together successfully to create a single new organisation and culture. Richard is also the Company Secretary for Karbon and has responsibility for governance, risk management, health and safety, procurement and data protection.

Prior to Karbon, Richard worked as the director of the Business and People directorate at Isos since joining the company in February 2011.

Richard is a member of the CIH (Chartered Institute of Housing) North East Regional Board.

Prior to joining Isos, Richard worked in local government in different parts of the country, including assistant chief executive roles in two councils.

Richard was born in Manchester and grew up there and in Cumbria. He studied politics at Leeds University.

In his spare time, Richard enjoys music and walking in the country.

Sebert Cox has been the Chairman of Karbon Homes since its formation in April 2017. He was previously chairman of Derwentside Homes – one of the merger partners which formed Karbon.

A resident of Iveston in County Durham, he is married with two adult daughters and four grandchildren.

Sebert has a wealth of experience of the housing association sector having previously been Chairman of the Places for People Group and of its predecessor Board (North British Housing Group).

During his time as Chairman he led the organisation through several strategic changes, making it one of the UK’s leading housing and regeneration agencies. He has also served as Chairman of the Probation Association Limited and Chairman of Durham Tees Valley Probation Trust.

Other current directorships include:

• Executive Chairman of Key Real Estate Limited (T/A Key Homes)
• Non-Executive Director – Bagnall Court

In 1994 he was appointed OBE for his services to the Home Office where he was Development Advisor in the Probation Directorate for over 11 years.

Adrian Stanley is Chair of Prince Bishops Homes and a Karbon Homes Board Member

Adrian has been a lawyer for over 30 years. His main areas of practice are public sector development schemes, regeneration projects and funding agreements for local authorities, Homes England (formerly the HCA), public sector companies such as the old URCs, registered providers, and private sector companies. He has experience of development agreements, property joint ventures, funding, state aid and procurement. The majority of his career was spent with Eversheds Sutherland where he was the senior partner of the Newcastle office.

Adrian has been on the boards of a number of charities and not-for-profit organisations including Byker Bridge Housing Association (now Tyne Housing Association), The North East Employment Bond, Dame Allan's Schools and North East Architecture.

Currently, he is an academic tutor at Sunderland University teaching postgraduate students in the pro bono law clinic.

Outside of work, Adrian enjoys running, walking, gardening and reading.

Anne Mulroy has held a number of senior posts in housing and regeneration. She was - until recently - head of North East for the Homes & Communities Agency, where she had a strong track record of involvements in major regeneration projects. Prior to this she led the Housing Market Renewal Pathfinder for Newcastle and Gateshead and worked as a senior manager for Places for People.

Anne is a proven senior leader, with extensive experience of working in partnership with public and private sector organisations.

David Butler is a Fellow and Past President of the Chartered Institute of Housing. He is also a Chartered Surveyor and Chartered Secretary and has an M.Sc. in Public Sector Management.

He began his career in housing in 1966 and after working in Tyneside and South Yorkshire was appointed Director of Housing at Newcastle City Council in 1984, aged 34. He was appointed as Chief Executive of the CIH in 1998 and retired from full-time employment in 2008. During his ten years at the CIH, membership grew by 40% and CIH launched HouseMark, now the Sector's leading data and analysis service.

Prior to the creation of Karbon Homes he was Chairman of Cestria from 2012 and a member of the Isos Board from 2014.

In addition to his role as Vice Chairman of Karbon Homes he is Chairman of East Durham College, which has recently benefited from a £12.75m investment in its Houghall Campus, and is a member of the Property Committee of Durham Cathedral.

Hilary Florek joins Karbon Homes from the Isos Board where she has served since 2012. She is a strategic communications and marketing specialist and has worked with clients across the public and private sectors, specialising in media relations and crisis communication, internal communications, sponsorship and event management.

In addition to her role as Managing Director of HFPR, she has a great deal of experience as a non-executive director across a range of organisations, having served as Chairman of the Port of Tyne since 2014. In addition to this she is a non-executive director of North East Access to Finance and Sage Gateshead.

Hilary has two daughters and lives in Northumberland with her husband.

After 38 years in the finance industry, John took early retirement in June 2012 to pursue his interests in the voluntary and not-for-profit sectors.

For the previous 11 years he worked as a Relationship Director and Head of Lloyds Bank's Northern Region Not-for-Profit and Public Sector team with particular responsibility for charities, further and higher education, NHS foundation trusts, local authorities and social housing.

John joins Karbon Homes from the Isos and Cestria board. He remains a board member of Leeds Federated Housing Association, trustee of an almshouse and educational charity in Hull, and a governor of two further education colleges at Kirklees and Askham Bryan. He is also a Regional Committee member for the Heritage Lottery Fund.

In his spare time, he is involved in motorsport as a competitor and official and is also a keen walker.

Kathryn is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. After more than 20 years in the accountancy profession, Kathryn has recently devoted her time to working with local institutions whilst raising a family in County Durham.

Kathryn previously served as a non-executive director of Durham Tees Valley Probation Trust and is a former member of Durham Police Authority.

Kathryn is currently Audit Committee Chair at Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust following a period of nine years in a similar role at County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust.

Kathryn lectures at New College Durham.

Dr Maxine Mayhew is the Water Sector Director for Costain, the technology based engineering solutions provider where she is responsible for the P&L delivery and continued development of the ambitious Water Services Business. Previously she was Group Commercial Director at Northumbrian Water Limited where she was responsible for supply chain and marketing functions as well as leading the sourcing, negotiation and delivery of high value commercial contracts.

Maxine completed a PhD in 1998 and has held a variety of roles in the water Industry. During recent years Maxine has focussed on commercial leadership and strategy development and implementation and she has held Director roles which have covered all aspects of the industry from operations and engineering, through to support services including health, safety, risk, security, procurement and marketing.

She is also an independent member of the Cranfield University Council and a member of the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association Board.

Steve joins Karbon Homes from the Isos Board. He began his career as a solicitor in private practice working initially with national house-builders before moving to the North East and working more closely with housing associations. Following a move into the housing sector in 1997 Steve became an executive director with a national housing group, contributing more widely in the sector on issues of governance and regulation.

Steve currently sits as a fee-paid Judge in the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) and, since 2009, has fulfilled a range of consultancy and non-executive appointments.

Living in Northumberland, Steve brings to Karbon Homes particular knowledge and experience in the areas of governance and regulation and his broader leadership experience in the housing sector. As well as sitting on the Karbon Homes Board, Steve Chairs the Karbon Homes Audit and Risk Committee.

Stephen is a Chartered Accountant, and an experienced non-executive director, charity trustee, consultant and coach.

He has recently returned to the UK after a varied international career with KPMG, where as a board member and Chief Operating Officer he managed their operations in eastern Europe, helping to build a number of professional services businesses across that region, as well as starting some from scratch.

During his career with KPMG, he lived in five countries, worked in several more, and operated across a wide range of management activity, including People, Finance, Business Development, Marketing and Communications, and IT.

He started his career with PwC, working in UK and Italy, after graduating from Oxford University.