Board (care and support)

Our board for care and support activity acts as our governing body. The board has responsibility for the overall direction of the organisation, making sure all business is conducted in accordance with the rules, regulations and statutes for the benefit of current and future stakeholders. In 2008, two care and support customers were elected to positions on the board. Our care and support activity operates through the legal entity ‘Metropolitan Support Trust’.

Waheed Saleem (Chair)

Waheed joined the care and support board in 2012. Waheed has been involved in local community projects from a young age, working with the police on youth justice and crime prevention initiatives, chairing a local community forum in Walsall. He studied at the London School of Economics and, during his studies, worked part-time at Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council. Upon Graduation, he began a career in health as a Drugs and Regeneration Programme Manager, a Ward Business Manager, a Senior Commissioning Manager, a foundation Trust Group Manager and, finally, as a Locality Director with Birmingham East and North PCT.

Waheen runs his own consultancy company and holds non-exec appointments at NACRO & NACRO Pension Fund, Groundwork West Midlands, GMC, Lunar Society, Sustainability West Midlands, Birmingham Leadership Foundation and BBC Audience Council England.

Janet Dean

Janet has over 30 years’ experience of commissioning, contracting and transforming public sector services. She is co-founder of the Dean Knight Partnership, which provides consultancy and interim management for a range of regeneration, housing, social care and leadership projects.

Janet is Non-Executive Chair of Compass UK, a national drug and alcohol treatment charity, Deputy Chair of the Board of Governors and Chair of the Finance and Employment Committee of Sheffield Hallam University, and an Associate Non-Executive Director of North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust. She was designated a Public Appointments Ambassador by the Government Equalities Office, and holds an appointment with the Department for Communities and Local Government as a Member of the Doncaster Recovery Board. Previously Chair of Sheffield Homes, the UK’s largest arms-length housing management organisation, she served for five years as Non-Executive Director of NHS Yorkshire and the Humber, and was Chair of the Alzheimer’s Society in York for nine years.

Donald Graham

Donald brings 30 years experience of social housing to the board, as a former tenant, advocate and executive.

Following his council and housing association tenancies, Donald became an expert in housing rights and founded a tenant’s advisory service in Northern Ireland. Here he produced a series of pamphlets on housing, benefits and various campaigns while he working in the voluntary field.

His background led him to appointments as Directors of Housing, Community and Social Services and as the Chief Executive of two authorities. Major projects included Donald leading two housing stock transfers, the setting up of an Arms Length Management Organisation and regeneration projects in London and Wales.

Donald also represented Wales on issues of asylum seekers, dispersal and housing provision and served on the UK Boarder Agency Board, established to tackle similar concerns.

He enjoys snowboarding and is learning to kite surf. He believes that if you are told something is impossible, then it can be done.

Phillippa Marlowe-Hunt

Phillippa became the first care and support customer to be appointed to the board in 2008.

Phillippa is also on the tenant management committee of her housing estate and is a member of LATMOS’ group – a group of housing Tenant Management Organisations set to form their own housing association. She has previously been on the management committee of Stockwell Women’s Refugee Centre and has been Chair of “Belong”, a Christian-based charity which seeks to empower and strengthen local housing communities through supported help and self-governance.

Phillippa has had a variety of jobs from painter and decorator to bouncer to restaurant manager to retail manager. She is home educating her son, trained and performed in classical ballet and Indian dancing, loves cycling around London, is a voracious reader of history and English literature, grows organic vegetables and classes herself as a budding eco warrior. She has an interest in supporting people, regenerating and stabilising of communities. And to her the world is a community!

Rachel Mayman, MBA, CIPFA

Rachel is an experienced public sector finance professional with experience across health, housing and local authority sectors.

Rachel is currently Senior Information Lead at Niche Health and Social Care, a management consultancy offering services with a strong focus on the mental health sector.

Immediately prior to this, Rachel served eleven years’ at the Audit Commission as Senior Performance Specialist. The role entailed facilitating improved performance at a variety of organisations including social services, health authorities and service providers.

Rachel has also served in a variety of finance management positions, including six years as a Finance Manager for Commissioning at Dudley Health Authority, and has served four years’ on the Audit Committee at Turning Point.

Liz Hughes – Executive Director of People and Resourcing

Before coming to Metropolitan, Liz previously spent 20 years in the private sector in legal, accountancy and consulting engineering organisations.

Liz is responsible for cultural change, business process change, the Business Programme Office, organisational development, learning and development, operational HR, reward, payroll and HR systems, the HR Shared Service Centre, communications, facilities management and health and safety. She is a member of the Executive Management Team.

Aniekan Umoren – Executive Director of Development, Regeneration and Communities

Aniekan brings a wealth of experience to Metropolitan, gained in most aspects of housing and related services. She started her career in housing renewal areas in Haringey and progressed through to director level appointments in supported housing, neighbourhoods, development and housing / community services, in Circle Anglia (then Circle 33), Hackney Council, Friendship Housing and Care, New Islington and Hackney HA and the London Borough of Newham.  She is, in her own words, ‘a people person’.

Before joining Metropolitan, Aniekan was Managing Director, South at Places for People. She is also a qualified Barrister, Lincoln’s Inn Field and a Corporate Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing. Aniekan has had a successful executive level career in both Local Government and Housing Association sectors. She has also worked in a voluntary capacity chairing Path (London), been on the board of large London housing association and is currently chair of The Forum, a leadership development and networking organisation for BME leaders in the sector.

Alan Wallace

Alan has a solid background in the charity and social enterprise sector and has been involved in local economic development for many years. He has been a board member of a number of charities and businesses, including Refugee Housing Association which merged with other organisations to become Metropolitan Support Trust.

Alan’s varied interests and expertise led him to an 18 month stint working as an organisational development advisor for VSO in Kathmandu. He has served as Chief Executive for several organisations, including social enterprises such as Priory Campus in Barnsley and SHINE, a Yorkshire-based development and social enterprise consultancy, which he was a founding member of. Before setting up SHINE he was the founding Chief Executive of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, a national grant making body.

Alan is a member of the Development Trusts Association and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.