Board

The board decides the overall direction of our organisation and makes sure we are managed well. It is made up of up to 12 members.

In 2008, two of our service users were elected to positions on the board.

Chris Birchall (Chair)

Chris had been Chair since September 2009. Chris joined the board of Threshold Support in 2004 before it became part of Metropolitan Support Trust in 2007. He is an IPFA qualified accountant with over 20 years’ experience of social housing and is also a qualified Town Planner. His career in social housing includes working at the Housing Corporation, Family Housing Association (now Family Mosiac) and, before retirement, as Finance and Administration Director at Hexagon Housing Association. Chris has held a number of board positions, including acting as a statutory appointee for the Housing Corporation, before being appointed vice chair of MST in February 2008. He recently became an independent board member and Chair of the audit committee at Phoenix Community Housing and a member of the audit committee of the Charles Dickens Museum.

 

Isabelle Bryan

Isabelle joined the board of Refugee Housing Association in 2005 before it became Metropolitan Support Trust in 2007. She is a member of the Ashmore Fund Committee which supports projects that benefit refugees and migrants. Isabelle is also a board member of Regenda Group, a housing association and regeneration company based in the north west. She has worked for charities and NGOs such as the Citizens Advice and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, where she designed and implemented a great number of charitable and humanitarian projects. She presently works for the Co-operative Group where she supports the Group’s ethical strategy by developing funding schemes aimed at strengthening local communities.

Isabelle holds a BA in Politics and International Relations, MA in International Political Economy, MSc in Commercial Property Management, and a Foundation and Endowment Asset Management Programme Certificate from the London Business School.

 

Maureen Dalziel

Maureen is a public health physician who has held board level appointments since 1989. She has been associated with the supported housing sector for twelve years. She is presently working across the NHS in an independent capacity and is on the Board of the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) and the British Pregnancy Advisory Centre (BPAS). For 20 years she held senior board appointments within the NHS, including several CEO and senior medical/public health appointments and she was a member of the senior civil service at the DOH.  She was a general practitioner before training in public health. She has a doctorate in public health and policy from the University of London and holds an honorary senior lectureship in health services research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

 

Donald Douglas

Donald Douglas joined the Board of Threshold in 1991 and was Chair of Threshold Support until it became part of Metropolitan Support Trust 2007. Donald has extensive experience in housing and is currently Chief Executive of Lea Housing Association. He has served on a wide range of boards and management committees for over 27 years. These have ranged from various social club committees, single regeneration boards and of course general needs and supported housing organisation’ boards.

 

Eugene Johnson

Dr. Gene Johnson is an Occupational Psychologist. He has nearly 20 years' experience in government, academia, consultancy, and corporate sectors. Gene started his career with the U.S. government, later moving to an academic position in the School of Management at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. While on sabbatical in the UK he decided to remain and to enter consultancy in assessment and development, working several years for a training firm set up by Ford Motor Company. He currently works as a Head of Talent Management for EMEA at Dell Computers. Gene is a chartered occupational psychologist and was the Chair Elect of the British Psychological Society's Division of Occupational Psychology, a group of nearly 4,000. He joined Refugee Housing Association's board in 2005 before it became Refugee Support, and transferred to the Metropolitan Support Trust board in 2007.

 

Dawn Stephenson

Dawn was appointed to the Metropolitan Housing Partnership (MHP) Board in 2005 and the Metropolitan Support Trust Board in 2007. Currently, she is the Chief Executive of Age Concern Hammersmith and a non-executive for NHS London (London's Strategic Authority) and has more than 20 years' public and voluntary experience working with a wide range of organisations. She is an executive committee member of PATH National and a Trustee for the Housing Association Charitable Trust (HACT). She is a former Chair and Vice Chair of Croydon Peoples Housing Association. Dawn is Shadow Diversity Champion and a member of MHP’s nominations committee and quality and accountabilities forum.

 

Alan Wallace

Alan joined the Refugee Support Board in 2005 (then Refugee Housing Association). Throughout his career Alan has been involved in local economic development, in the social enterprise sector and in charity management. Recently Alan has been a founding partner in a new social enterprise consultancy in Yorkshire – Camberwell Ltd.He has also been involved in the development of SHINE – a new enterprise centre in the Harehills area of Leeds. Prior to this Alan was the first Chief Executive of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust  and before that of Priory Campus (a successful Barnsley social enterprise). He is particularly interested in the overlap between the social and commercial aspects of enterprise and in developing ways of introducing business skills to smaller voluntary groups. Alan has had a long association with the Development Trusts Association (DTA) – previously having served both on the national board and as a member of the Yorkshire Regional Advisory Group. He is currently an individual member of the DTA, a Fellow of the RSA and a board member of Funderfinder Ltd.

 

Mark Austin – Executive Board Member

Mark joined Metropolitan Housing Partnership in 2002 bringing with him extensive experience in supported housing. He previously managed supported housing at London and Quadrant Housing Trust and has held a variety of posts at Hyde Housing. After graduating from the London School of Economics, Mark's first job was as a support worker for people with learning difficulties. He has also been involved in community work, hospital closure programmes and developing quality assurance.
A long-term resident of south London, Mark is a Millwall Football Club season ticket holder and has a teenage daughter. He is a 'green' gardener and has had great success in increasing the local frog population.
As Managing Director, he aims for Metropolitan Support Trust to be recognised as the leading provider of support services, of the highest quality, customer focussed and cost effective.

 

Phillippa Marlowe-Hunt

Phillippa was the first service user to be on the MST Board when she was appointed in 2008. She is a member of one of MST’s regional service user groups and is a member of the MST Service User Strategy Group – a group that gives the organisation strategic guidance. She is also on the tenant management committee of her housing estate and is a member of LATMOS' group – a group of housing TMOs 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!

 

Olani Nemera

Olani became the second service user to be appointed as a board member in September 2009, having been a board observer since 2008. He is a Refugee Support service user and a member of one of MST's regional service user groups. He volunteers for Wandsworth Age Concern and South Western Magistrate Court Help Desk and actively participates in and volunteers for Refugee Support events. Olani is enthusiastic about and enjoys seeing the well-being of a society that he is a part of. After graduating from university in his home country, Olani worked for the Ministry of Agriculture for over 23 years at various levels. Olani took the role team leader and project coordinator in the ministry to accomplish the objectives and goal of agricultural development. He also served as a secondary school science teacher for about 5 years and enjoyed working with the community during his leisure times. He organised community members to undertake development activities and ensure safety and security of their constituency.

By giving up some of their time to help us build on the good work we do, volunteers make a real difference to people’s lives.

Does volunteering interest you?

 

People like me

Zyad completed the DR LES project in Derby. Read his story

 

 

 

Service user fun day

View the video!