The Board
The NHQB Board is made up of a wide range of individuals who each bring a wealth of expertise to support the NHQB in achieving its aims of championing quality new homes and better consumer outcomes.
Members of the Board fall into one of four areas:
| Executive Members: | members of the NHQB Executive Committee. | |
| Independent: | members from outside the industry and who are either wholly independent or represent stakeholder interests such as consumers or lenders | |
| Industry: | members from the housebuilding industry | |
| Representative Members (non voting): |
Homes England and the Home Builders Federation provide non-voting observatory board members for the NHQB. | |
The New Homes Quality Board has enshrined within its constitution a “Constitutional Lock” to ensure that it is independent of developers whilst also recognising the importance of developer representatives playing a key role in driving forward sector led innovation and improvement for consumers and the industry.
As with the NHQB itself, there are safeguards throughout the work to ensure it remains independent. For example, builders can’t sit on the Disciplinary and Sanctions or other committees that oversee developers or the ombudsman service.
Executive members
Emma Toms
Emma Toms was appointed Chief Executive of the New Homes Quality Board in March 2024.
Emma brings a wealth of experience from her senior leadership roles across various sectors including automotive, rail and housebuilding. With more than 20 years of expertise in senior customer experience roles, she has been instrumental in developing strategies to place the customer at the centre of business decision-making and transform the end-to-end customer journey.
Independent members
Rob Brighouse
Rob has a strong track record in an ambassadorial role, with experience in engaging with commercial industry, coupled with credibility in operating at the most senior levels of government. With a technical background and an exceptionally strong track record, in an executive capacity, of engaging with industry to deliver high profile and high value infrastructure projects. He is the Senior Independent Director, Network Rail Board and founding Chair of the East West Railway Company.
Douglas Cochrane
Douglas Cochrane has led the work to develop a new Code for improved customer redress since [2017]. A regular contributor and advisor on housing matters and housing policy, [including relating to Scottish Government and the UK Government housing policy formation over many years.] Douglas has chaired the Scottish Mortgage Committee of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), and subsequently for UK Finance. In 2003 Douglas was instrumental in delivering the CML Initiative which focused the role of new home warranty providers in inspecting the quality of homes. Douglas was the architect of the CML Disclosure of Incentives Form (CML DIF), now known as the UK Finance Disclosure Form which is used across the mortgage industry to create transparency in new build purchase transactions. Douglas was deputy chair of the Construction Licensing Executive, a Scottish charity that was established to improve consumer redress in the repairs and maintenance sector.
Douglas Cochrane retired from Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) in July 2020, following a 41-year career during which he held a number of senior positions. Latterly, Douglas was Head of Housing Development where he was responsible for the Banks retail relationships with the house building and affordable housing sectors.
In addition to his work at NHQB, Douglas is Non Executive Director of Rezide [which is committed to values based provision of affordable family homes] and is a consultant for the Mortgage Advice Bureau, the UK’s leading mortgage intermediary brand.
Douglas has a great passion for his native Scotland. His hobbies include motorcycling, travel and hill walking.
Jackie Bennett OBE
Jackie is a NED and senior advisor with over 20 years of experience in the mortgage industry gained from working at UK Finance, mortgage lending firms and the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). She is a part time senior adviser to UK Finance and was Director of Mortgages at UK Finance between 2018 and 2020. Between 2001 and 2014 Jackie worked at CML, one of the bodies integrated into UK Finance in July 2017. In June 2010, Jackie was awarded an OBE for her work through the financial crisis of 2008-2010, where she led on a number of initiatives supporting customers in financial difficulty. Immediately prior to joining UK Finance, Jackie worked for two different mortgage lenders in senior compliance roles, introducing a number of improvements for customers. She also served as ‘Deputy Manager for property and household’ at the Association of British Insurers (ABI). She spent her early career working in a variety of police and criminal policy roles at the Home Office. Jackie chairs the NHQB’s remuneration committee.
Gillian Cooper
Gillian has been a consumer advocate in the energy sector for over 16 years, working in a number of watchdog organisations. Gillian works for national charity, Citizens Advice, where she leads the organisation’s policy work as the statutory energy consumer advocate and is also responsible for its energy consumer advice strategy.
At Citizens Advice, she launched a new league table ranking the customer service performance of energy suppliers. Throughout her career, Gillian has focussed on incentivising companies across different regulated markets to provide better service and support to consumers in vulnerable situations. She’s currently leading transformation work at Citizens Advice aimed at improving the client experience and sustainability of the charity’s energy advice services.
Gillian leads the consumer engagement work within the board.
Naomi Connell
Naomi Connell is an experienced Audit Committee Chair. A group CFO with a broad business leadership role, including governance, finance, people and technology, she is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, and has extensive international, audit, risk management, M&A, financial and commercial business management experience with leading organisations in both private and public sectors. These include engineering and construction, transport, energy, infrastructure, trading, technology, manufacturing, big four accountancy and services. In 2019, she was named by the Financial Times and Inclusive Boards as one of the top 100 women in engineering.
Curtis Juman
Curtis Juman is a Board-level executive, with non-executive experience gained in the central government, social housing, and higher education sectors. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy and has been at CFO-level for the last 12 years. He has worked in the private sector in the UK as well as internationally with the Foreign Office and regularly works with Non-Executives Boards, Government Ministers, Senior Civil Servants, Trustees, and financial advisors.
Paul Price
Paul Price was the Deputy Chief Executive at a District Council, having previously been at the City of London Corporation as Head of Residential and Technical and has significant experience across the housing sector. He has been a Director for the Association of Retained Council Housing and has provided a practical sounding board for government housing and construction policy over a number of years. Until recently he led the complex renewal process for the most deprived community in England.
Industry members
Jennie Daly CBE
With over 20 years’ experience in the housebuilding industry across a number of roles and businesses, Jennie Daly represents large PLC builders on the Board.
As Chief Executive of Taylor Wimpey, Jennie oversees the land, planning, design and technical, production and supply chain functions, in addition to managing the Taylor Wimpey Logistics business. An important part of her role is championing build quality and upholding high customer standards. Since introduced, Taylor Wimpey has consistently led the volume housebuilders in the NHBC independent construction quality scores.
Jennie has been a plc Board Director of Taylor Wimpey since 2018 and is also a non-executive director of the Peabody Trust, a large affordable housing provider based in London.
Steve Wood
Steve Wood joined the National House Building Council (NHBC) as Chief Executive Officer in June 2017. He has been involved in a variety of sectors, including general insurance, healthcare and insurance distribution. Prior to joining NHBC, Steve has held positions as Chief Executive Officer of Paymentshield, UK Managing Director at Ecclesiastical Insurance and Managing Director at FirstAssist Group. He has also held senior positions at RSA Insurance Group plc and Royal Insurance. Steve is passionate about helping the further education of young people and regularly attends mentoring sessions for young people in Milton Keynes schools and colleges. Steve has a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics and is a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute.
Duncan Jackson
Duncan Jackson is a renowned leader within the house building sector, boasting over 17 years of extensive experience in senior executive roles. Duncan previously held Managing Director roles at Cala, Persimmon Homes and Taylor Wimpey before joining Hopkins Homes in 2023. With a robust background in land acquisition and a proven track record in strategic growth, he is ideally placed to steer the future direction of Hopkins Homes.
Duncan is an advocate of sustainable new communities and putting the customer first, second and third. At Hopkins Homes, Duncan is integrating sustainability into all aspects of the business, committing fully to ESG (Environmental Social Governance) to find new ways to build more sustainably.
Ian Burns
Ian has worked for family-owned housebuilders for over 35 years, so he understands the challenges faced by SME builders. He was the founder and managing director of Cameron Homes, a Midlands-based business with a sound reputation for quality. Ian is a strong advocate for improving quality standards and the customer journey in buying and owning a new home.
In addition to building quality homes, Ian believes that the customer experience when buying a new home should be positive. While the process is important, people make the real difference.
Representative members (non-voting)
Alison Crofton
Alison Crofton is the National Development Director (Interim) for Homes England. Alison leads the development team on planning, enabling and disposals to facilitate development.
Alison drives forward the agency’s ambitions of enabling homes in the right place for the right people pushing for high quality housing and communities for people to live. Alison has over 20 years’ experience delivering major housing and mixed-use developments within both private and public sector organisations.
Steve Turner
Steve Turner is Director of Communications for the Home Builders Federation (HBF). Steve qualified as a Civil Engineer before moving into journalism and then communications.
Steve has led on HBF’s work with regards to putting a New Homes Ombundsman Service (NHOS) in place since 2016.