Shadow non-executive board chosen for proposed Anchor Hanover Group

The Shadow Board for the organisation that would be formed from the merger of Anchor and Hanover has been named.

The two organisations, which specialise in housing, care and support services to older people, are in talks about merging to form the Anchor Hanover Group. The 10-member Shadow Board is made up of equal numbers from each organisation and would become the Board of Anchor Hanover Group if the merger goes ahead. 

As announced in May, the Chair of the Shadow Board is Hanover’s current Chair Dr Stuart Burgess CBE, who has been in post at Hanover since September 2014.

The Shadow Board members now being named are:

Mark Allan (Anchor)

Mark has been Chief Executive of St Modwen Properties plc, the UK’s leading property regeneration specialist and a constituent of the FTSE 250 index, since November 2016. 

Immediately prior to taking up this role, Mark spent 17 years at Unite Students, the UK’s leading student accommodation provider, including 10 years as Chief Executive and three as Chief Financial Officer. 

He is a member of both the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Nicola Bruce (Hanover) 

Nicola was previously a non-executive board member at Hanover and is an experienced strategist who has worked with Boards over the last 30 years as a strategic advisor in an executive and non-executive capacity.  She was a partner at the Monitor Group strategic consultancy and Director of Strategy & Business Development at De La Rue plc. Prior to this, she worked as an economist for Coopers & Lybrand where she led economic development and regeneration strategies for UK development agencies.  

As a non-executive, Nicola sits on the Board of CS Healthcare, a mutual private health insurer where she chairs the Remuneration Committee and is a member of the Risk and Governance Committee. She is on the Board of Wings Travel Management Ltd, a specialist global travel business, where she is a member of the Audit & Risk Committee.  Nicola was also on the Board of the Government’s Money Advice service, where she chaired the Investment Committee, and sat on the Audit & Risk Committee and Remuneration Committees, supporting the merger of Money Advice with Pension Wise and The Pension Advisory Service, until 2018. 

Nicola has an MA (PPE) from Oxford University and an MBA from INSEAD.

Julie Doyle (Hanover)

Julie has over 20 years’ experience at senior management level within the housing sector. She joined Longhurst Housing Association in 1995, was appointed Managing Director of Spire Homes in 1997 (part of the Longhurst Group) and in 2015 was appointed Chief Executive of the Longhurst Group.

Prior to joining Hanover Julie also held several posts in local authority housing departments.

Julie has an MBA in business administration and is a member of the East Midland National Housing Federation (NHF) Executive Committee.

Mike Green (Hanover)

Mike formerly served on the Board of Metropolitan Housing Trust. He was the independent member of Metropolitan’s Audit Committee from 2009 and from 2012 to 2017 he was non-executive director and Chair of Metropolitan’s Audit and Risk Committee.

His career commenced at KPMG as a trainee accountant where he progressed to the role of Senior Manager during his 11 years’ service.  While at KPMG he was admitted as a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. 

Mike spent 20 years in broadcast television, his last role being Deputy Group Finance Director at ITV. Currently he has various non-executive roles including the Royal Television Society and Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, where he is Chairman of the Audit Committee.

Alun Griffiths (Anchor)

Alun holds non-executive directorships with Severfield plc, Ramboll Group A/S and The Port of London Authority. 

Alun retired from WS Atkins plc, the leading engineering and project management consultancy, in July 2014 where he was a main board director and Group HR Director.

Peter Hay CBE (Hanover)

Peter has 20 years’ experience as a national and local leader of social care and public sector services. He has a track record of improving social care services and significant experience of improving performance, culture, delivering efficiencies in services and building confidence within the workforce.

Peter retired from Birmingham City Council after 14 years’ service, during which he held a number of strategic roles. Most recently he was Strategic Director for People, responsible for adult and children’s social care, education, public health, housing support and commissioning, before which he was Strategic Director for Social Care and Health and Strategic Director for Adults and Communities.

He was Director of Social Services for North East Lincolnshire Council and previously has had a range of social work and management positions within Humberside and North East Lincolnshire.

Peter is a trustee of Community Integrated Care and a longstanding Board Member for the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), the national body for research and development work in social care.  He also serves as National Executive Member and Treasurer of the New NHS Alliance. He has a degree in Social Work and an MBA. 

Stephen Jack OBE (Anchor) (Shadow Board Vice-Chair)

Stephen is a chartered accountant.

As an executive he held senior finance roles in a number of international financial services organisations including Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, ING Barings, and Collins Stewart Tullett plc. His non-executive roles span a number of different sectors. 

Stephen was Trustee and then Chair, from 2007 to 2015, of the Independent Living Fund, a non-departmental public body which provided support to severely disabled people across the UK. He joined the Board of the Cambridge Building Society as a Non-Executive Director in April 2014 and became a trustee of the Royal Mencap Society in May 2014. 

In September 2015, he joined the board of MUFG Securities EMEA plc as an independent Non-Executive Director. In December 2016 he became a trustee of Golden Lane Housing. 

Richard Jones CBE (Anchor)

Richard is an independent consultant having worked in a range of executive roles. He was a Director with NHS England responsible for the Area Team in Lancashire. Richard has worked in central and local government and was Executive Director of Adult and Community Services for Lancashire County Council. 

Richard qualified as a social worker and has held senior roles in a number of organisations. He has experience of commissioning both health and care services.

Richard was President of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, and is Chair of Shared Lives and a Trustee of Action on Hearing Loss. 

Richard Petty (Anchor)

Richard is the Lead Director for Residential Advisory at JLL, one of the largest firms of chartered surveyors and property consultants in the world. Richard has over 30 years’ professional experience, the last 22 years of which have been devoted to the affordable housing sector.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered

Surveyors and has previously been a partner of Drivers Jonas, Deloitte and King Sturge.

He is recognised nationally as one of the leading valuers and property advisors to Registered Providers, their funders, investors and to government and other stakeholders.  Richard is also Chair of Dolphin Living Limited, the not-for-profit Registered Provider subsidiary of Dolphin Square Foundation, and is a regular speaker at conferences in the sector.

Chair of the Shadow Board Dr Stuart Burgess said: “The members of the Shadow Board have a huge breadth of experience, including social care and housing, commissioning, development, finance, HR and operations among other areas. The fact that the Shadow Board is made up of people from Hanover and Anchor means the proposed new organisation has huge potential to build on the legacy of both and achieve more than either organisation could apart.”

Existing Hanover and Anchor Board members were invited to apply to join the Shadow Board and a panel comprising the two existing Chairs, with independent advisors, made the decision against a skills matrix, taking into consideration the skills and experience needed and that of existing Board members. A principle underpinning this was to make sure that there was a balance of members from both organisations

Anchor and Hanover announced in May that they were in merger discussions. They are now seeking feedback from customers and stakeholders and hope to report back in the late summer/autumn.