Our People

Lorraine 

Chief Executive Officer 

Lorraine joined BCHA in November 2022 as our new Chief Executive Officer.  

Lorraine has worked in the housing sector for 25 years, most recently as the Director of Housing for BCP Council, leading the strategic direction for housing issues across the area.  Responsible for delivering and commissioning services for people experiencing homelessness and housing need, leading an ambitious new build programme, ensuring the effective management of Council homes and specialist housing, overseeing an in-house repairs team, and managing a care technology and out of hours service.  

Lorraine’s career to date has involved leading a wide range of services for people who are experiencing socio-economic challenge.  She has worked in a range of different settings; Local Authorities, Registered Providers, regeneration programmes and in research roles.  She has worked across the South, the Midlands and the North East; always working in close partnership with multiple public, private and voluntary sector partners. 

Simon 

Director of Finance

Simon joined BCHA in March 2026 and currently in his role as Director of Finance has the responsibility for finance, governance and development.

Simon is an experienced finance leader in regulated social housing with expertise in strategy, financial reporting and high-value development programmes. He brings with him a wealth of knowledge gained throughout his career, and before BCHA Simon’s role was Assistant Finance Director at a £350m turnover organisation for the last 11 years, with a focus on financial strategy, statutory reporting, budgets, forecasting and large development programme delivery.

Simon is a great addition to BCHA with his experience, and he was personally keen to work for us “…as it is an organisation built on purpose, compassion and a belief in people’s potential….” aligning with the values of BCHA and the Strategic Plan.

Nicola

Director of Support

Nicola is an accomplished housing and social care leader with nearly 40 years of experience spanning the public and private sectors. Specialising in housing management, housing needs, homelessness, and strategic commissioning, she is a passionate advocate for combining stable housing with tailored support services to drive long-term recovery, health, and social independence. 

For the past 13 years, Nicola has been a driving force at BCHA, where she champions the delivery of collaboration in the delivery of support services. She understands that improving the commissioning, development, and delivery of support services for people with complex lives requires a deeply integrated, partnership-led approach.

As BCHA’s representative on the Alliance Leadership Team, Nicola collaborates with seven providers overseeing the Plymouth Alliance. Widely recognised as a pioneering approach to tackling multiple disadvantage, she helps direct a system-wide approach, working to drive systemic change, tackle homelessness, and significantly improve long-term outcomes.

Chris

Director of Home

Chris joined BCHA in May 2023 bringing with him over 30 years’ experience of working in social housing and social care with both local authorities and housing associations in repairs, maintenance, asset management and compliance.

His career has seen him progress from Group Asset Director at Selwood Housing to later becoming Director of Property for a specialist care company, showcasing his dedication to delivering and managing a first-class repairs and maintenance service for organisations with a social purpose.

Chris is passionate about keeping customers at the heart of his work by embedding customer engagement in all aspects of service delivery to ultimately ensure all homes are safe for the community. He is also a full member of the Chartered Institute of Building.

Chris is responsible for compliance with the Regulator of Social Housing’s Consumer Standards.

Phil 

Head of Governance

Phil is a qualified housing professional with nearly 30 years’ experience in social housing, in both local authority and housing associations. 

Phil has been with BCHA for over 22 years in a variety of corporate roles. As Head of Governance, he has oversight of governance, risk and business assurance. Phil has also been Company Secretary of BCHA and its subsidiaries since 2007.

Chris Nicholson (Chair)

Chris spent most of his executive career as a partner at KPMG, where he specialised in infrastructure finance and regulation advisory work. He spent several periods in leadership roles including as Head of Central Government Services and Head of Public Sector. He has also run a public policy think tank, been interim financial and commercial director of a government owned company and spent three years as policy special adviser to a Cabinet Minister.

Chris’s non-executive experience includes six years as Chair of the Board of a large government agency employing over 3,000 staff, six years as a Board member of a housing association and ten years as a trustee of a drug and alcohol abuse charity. He is at present on the board of Social Work England and trustee of the Family Rights Group. He is currently a Local Authority Councillor and has previous experience as Leader of a London borough.

Chris chairs the Board and is also a member of the Customer & Services and Finance & Treasury Committees.

Aasia Nisar (Vice Chair)

Aasia is an experienced housing professional with over 25 years’ experience in the housing sector and has a proven track record of developing strategic approaches, processes and managing teams within housing, resident involvement, community engagement, regeneration and access and customer care. She is committed to ensuring residents voices are heard, making a real difference as to how services are delivered. 

Aasia has also worked on several European Social Funded projects, as well as writing major funding applications for the National Lottery, Lloyds Bank Foundation and UK Community Foundation. She has a PhD in Sociology and Social policy, with her thesis focusing on ‘green’ housing developments and their contribution to community cohesiveness. 

Aasia is also a Board member of TPAS - a national tenant engagement organisation as well as on the Board of Directors and a Trustee for a multi academy trust in Hampshire.

Ceri Connor

Ceri is an Organisational Development (OD)  specialist and has worked across the whole spectrum of HR, OD, education, learning, leadership development, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) over the last 25 years. For the majority of this time, Ceri has worked in the NHS within Acute and Community and Mental Health services, most recently the Director of Organisational Development at University Hospital Southampton. She spent the early parts of her career teaching within Further and Adult Education across programmes in Health, Social and Early Years Care. Ceri has also been involved with Armed Forces veterans support and was the Programme Director for Workforce in Hampshire and IOW for the Covid-19 mass vaccination programme.

A Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), Ceri is the Chief People Officer at South Hampshire College Group.

Ceri sits on the Customer & Services Committee and is the BCHA Board champion for Safeguarding and EDI.

Peter Edy

Peter has over 40 years’ experience as a Construction professional (working in the UK and overseas), leading teams and specialising in taking projects from inception to handover, including the facilities management operations.

Peter is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Building and a Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, where he chairs assessment panels for members wishing to proceed to full membership. Peter has a keen interest in helping others achieve their qualifications and develop their careers to reach their full potential.

Peter’s role provides senior management leadership in Development, Risk Management, Procurement and Contract Management, Change Management and Strategy.

Peter began his involvement with BCHA in September 2022, being co-opted to the Development committee. Peter is the BCHA board’s Health and Safety champion and joined the board in April 2024. He is also a member of the Development and Asset Management committee. Peter was previously a NED with Signpost/Spectrum Group Housing Association.

Richard Knott

Richard Knott CIHCM is Chief Operations Officer and Deputy Chief Executive at New Forest District Council (NFDC), where he provides strategic leadership across the Council’s operational services and corporate functions. He works closely with the Chief Executive, elected members and partner organisations to ensure strong governance, high-quality service delivery and effective regulatory compliance.

With 27 years’ experience in local government, primarily within the housing sector, Richard brings extensive expertise spanning frontline service delivery through to senior executive leadership. His professional background includes housing management, asset management, regulatory compliance, building safety and resident engagement.

Since joining NFDC in 2018, Richard has led significant service transformation, strengthening building safety, compliance and assurance arrangements while supporting continued Decent Homes compliance and readiness for the Regulator of Social Housing’s Consumer Standards. He has championed improvements in performance management, data quality, risk management and organisational governance, helping to embed a proactive, resident-focused culture across housing services.

Richard has played a key role in improving outcomes for residents while supporting the Council’s wider strategic objectives. He continues to provide senior leadership across housing and corporate services, with a particular focus on governance, service quality, continuous improvement and regulatory assurance.

Hannah Lee

Hannah is a charity development specialist, having worked in the sector for the past 15 years, most recently Hannah has been working as a charity consultant across the UK, working alongside CEOs and Senior Leadership Teams to help them to overcome challenges and grasp opportunities delivering transformation and developing innovative strategies to maximise impact. 

Before owning her own consultancy Hannah most recently held senior leadership roles for the RNLI and Shelter. Hannah was the Director for Community Services and National Contracts at Shelter, transforming operating models to tackle the root causes of bad housing and homelessness contributing to national housing policy reform.  At the RNLI, Hannah developed the User Experience strategy for IT infrastructure deployment, ensuring that the voices of over 40,000 staff and volunteers informed the development of new systems and processes.

Graduating from the University of Hull with an MA in Development Studies, Non – Government Organisations and Service Design, Hannah also has Board experience at Home-Start.

Graham Oliver

Graham has over 30 years’ experience as a Chartered Accountant, latterly helping Housing Associations to connect finance function more closely with operations, from planning through processing to reporting and monitoring. He has achieved this through interim and contract assignments, non-executive positions and through consultancy work, working with associations of all sizes from less than 1,000 properties to G15 London associations. 

He has a keen interest in developing people to meet their full potential, and in making finance more understandable for non-financial people, recognising that most decisions in organisations have a financial impact. 

Julie Porter

Julie is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and has a degree in Land Management. She has worked within housing development in a variety of roles for over 30 years; she started her career with a private housebuilder before going on to work for a number of regional and national housing associations. 

Julie has led a wide range of teams including new business; asset management; planned maintenance; leasehold; sales; marketing; as well as development delivery. Julie is currently Executive Director of Development at Fairhive Homes in Buckinghamshire. 

Suzanne Rastrick

Suzanne’s 40-year career in the NHS has encompassed a variety of roles. She qualified as an Occupational Therapist and became the first Allied Health Professional (AHP) to hold a substantive Director of Nursing post in both providing and commissioning organisations. She has also been Chief Executive of a Primary Care Trust. She was appointed as Chief Allied Health Professions Officer for England in September 2014.

In 2017 Suzanne launched the first AHP strategy for England which has been recognised sa ground-breaking in policy development from its use of crowdsourcing. Building on this, Suzanne published a second national AHP strategy in June 2022. This iteration had a greater emphasis on patient, public voice and specifically the inclusion of those who may be digitally excluded along with communities who may find it difficult to connect with traditional consultation methods. The result is a national strategy crowdsourced from diverse populations for people and communities AHPs serve.

For over three decades, Suzanne has held non-executive portfolios outside of the NHS, including audit committee chair roles, predominantly in the social housing sector. Suzanne was recognised as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2019 and as a Commander (CBE) in 2025. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Occupational Therapists, the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal College of Paramedics. She holds Visiting Professor roles at City St George’s, University of London and at Oxford Brookes University.

Asa Stevens

Asa has been working in the Financial Services industry for over 20 years covering many roles including operations and (anti) financial crime leadership, risk management and currently transformation & operational excellence. 

Having been a user of BCHA services at the turn of the millennium, Asa is keen to offer insight and guidance to BCHA using the skills gained since. 

Ian White

Ian started his career at Royal Mail, covering various roles over a 16-year period before joining the Finance team at Twynham Housing Association, then moving to Synergy Housing Group. In Ian’s next role at Spectrum, he managed the integration to a single housing management system for all income transactions, restructured the teams to a single site and was responsible for delivering the regulatory rent structure regime.

Ian’s next post was as RP Financial Reporting Manager for Spectrum’s 5 RP subsidiaries before he took on responsibility for financial reporting for the whole Group.

Ian briefly changed sectors in 2017, becoming Financial Controller at EIMS Global, a sales and marketing company with 6 subsidiaries and over £20M consolidated revenue, before moving to his current post at Magna where he leads the finance function, having in the past two years redesigned the team structure, delivered £150M in new funding and implemented a budget and forecasting tool to support medium-term planning.

Ian chairs the Finance & Treasury Committee and is also a member of the Development & Asset Management Committee.