Debbie obtained a history degree from Cambridge and moved to Cardiff in 1988, obtaining her chartered accountancy qualification in 1991. Having worked in the private, public and charitable sector, Debbie started her career in housing with Dewi Sant in 2005. Formerly the Group Finance Director, she took up the post of Chief Executive in April 2014.

Debbie believes in working towards a fairer and more equal society and that access to a good quality, affordable home in a sustainable community is a key part of this. She is a former Chair of both Chwarae Teg, the charity working towards economic development and equality for women in Wales, former Chair of Community Housing Cymru and Trustee of the leading Welsh mental health and wellbeing charity, Platfform (previously Gofal). Debbie is also a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing.

Luke has worked in the housing sector for over 20 years. He qualified with a Masters in Housing from Cardiff University and started his housing career as a trainee housing manager with Swansea City Council. He is a Chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Housing.

After several years working for local authorities in Wales, Luke moved to England to work at Places for People Group: one of the largest social housing landlords in the UK. Luke was responsible for large multi-functional teams and led on regeneration projects and operations in the South West and North West of England, whilst working as the Regional Lead for almost a decade.

In 2014, Luke returned to live in and work in Wales as Director of Housing Services with Rhondda Housing Association. Luke took up the role of Chief Executive at RHA in 2018, where he oversaw a significant period of change and progress. During this time, Luke has also held non-executive roles as Chair of the Regional Partnership Board for Cwm Taf Morgannwg and board member of Business in the Community Cymru, the King’s responsible business charity. He is currently a trustee of the Cardiff City FC Community Foundation.

Caroline has worked in the housing sector for over 20 years. Caroline started out in the legal profession, having obtained a law degree, before specialising in employment law and then making the move to a career in HR.  Prior to housing, Caroline worked in the legal, private, public and charitable sectors.

Caroline brings a huge amount of experience to the role of Executive Director of People, where she is responsible for our internal people services at Beacon which includes HR and Organisational Development,  Facilities Management and Communications.

Caroline is a National Council Member of the CIPD,  a member of the Living Wage steering group for Mid and West Wales, and is a member of  the Community Housing Cymru (CHC) Strategic HR Delivery Group. Caroline has a Masters in Human Resources, an MBA and is a qualified coach and mentor. A Fellow of the CIPD, Fellow of the ILM and a member of CIH, Caroline is also Director of Belasco Associates Ltd, along with her husband, who runs a commercial management consultancy business.

Jen has worked in the housing sector for almost 25 years, with the majority of her time spent in local government in South Wales before moving to the housing association sector in 2019 when she joined RHA as Director of Operations. Over the course of her career in housing Jen has been responsible for a range of operational and strategic housing services, including commissioning new affordable housing, managing private sector housing standards and grants services, leading on housing-led regeneration projects and providing the strategic direction and policy framework for all housing services in Rhondda Cynon Taf.

As Director of Operations at RHA, Jen led the housing and maintenance teams with work in this area including developing a new approach to resident involvement, transformation of property health and safety and compliance services, delivery of a new maintenance framework achieving improved value for money and social value for residents and developing RHA’s first Sustainability Strategy.

Jen is passionate about using data-driven insight to enable the transformation of services and to deliver continuous improvement and innovation in services and in 2025 took up the position of Executive Director of Transformation and Business Insight at Beacon to lead the delivery of our ambitions in this area. In this role Jen is responsible for our Technology services and our newly created Business Insight service and is working closely with colleagues across the business to harness the benefits of data and technology to enable Beacon to deliver its vision and purpose across all areas of the business.

Rhianydd is an experienced and trusted construction and property professional with over 15 years of hands on experience working in development particularly delivery of affordable housing and mixed use developments.

Prior to her appointment, Rhianydd has built a career within the RSL in South Wales.

Rhianydd brings a huge amount of experience and innovation to the role.  She is responsible for our new build development programme, our commercial portfolio and for shaping our town centre regeneration plans to ensure our strategic plans benefit the community as a whole.

Serena started her housing career in homeless services in London before joining Capital Housing (now St Martin of Tours Housing Association) in 1996. In 2001, Serena joined Look Ahead as a manager at their Gateway Foyer, later becoming Head of Quality and Performance until she left in 2008 to move to Wales. After seven years with Grŵp Gwalia (now Pobl), initially as Director of Supported Housing and latterly as Director of Strategy and Governance, she joined Beacon in 2015 as Executive Director of Operations.

Serena is passionate about system design in services and has a keen interest in relational strengths-based approaches, re-balancing harmful power dynamics, reducing bureaucracy, facilitating diversity and embracing complexity. She was a Business Commissioner on the Swansea Poverty Truth Commission in 2023/2024, the first to be run in Wales, and is a sector representative on the Ending Homelessness National Advisory Board (Wales). She has held roles previously in Community Housing Cymru’s strategic delivery groups and remains an active member of several of these.

For ten years until 2025, Serena was a foster parent with the local authority in Swansea and is an advocate for Looked After Children and those who have experienced trauma. She has formerly held voluntary roles for a UK youth charity and as a school governor in Swansea. She is a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing.

Peter’s career has been spent in banking – initially in commercial banking roles within NatWest and subsequently leading the Principality Building Society’s Commercial Team for almost 20 years, before standing down in 2021.

In the latter role, the division played a significant part in supporting the Welsh housing agenda across a broad spectrum from SME house builders to social landlords, which fuelled Peter’s passion for the housing association sector. Through this position, and also as Chair of UK Finance, Peter has forged strong links with many of the housing industry stakeholders at both policy and strategic level.

Married with two children, Peter went to a Welsh school in North Wales and is re-learning his Welsh skills.

Recently retired from the Principality Building Society, Patrick has a proven track record of using a systems thinking methodology that demonstrates improvement in service, efficiency, costs and morale across a range of service industries. He is experienced in working with leading brands in competitive industries with the primary focus on exceeding expectations for customer service delivery through core quality management.

From 2009-2017, Patrick was a freelance consultant with Vanguard Consulting Limited which included redesigning work for public sector and private sector organisations. During this time he worked with seven different Housing Associations in the UK and Ireland focusing on improving services for residents. Prior to this, Patrick spent 17 years with ‘The Halifax’ which included spells as a Call Centre Manager and an Operations Director.

One of only 45 people worldwide to be accredited to use the Vanguard Consulting Ltd methodology, he has a degree in Sports Science from Loughborough University, is the Chair of his local Community Fridge and coaches young athletes at a running club in Newport.

Aaron grew up in Bridgend before studying Law & Politics at Swansea University. Since then, he has spent over a decade working in senior policy and influencing roles across the UK, on issues ranging from housing to transport, health and education.

His time in housing included spells as Director of Policy & Membership with the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and Head of Policy & External Affairs with Community Housing Cymru, where he worked with housing associations to develop policy in areas including finance, development, governance and decarbonisation.

In Aaron’s current role as Director of Partnerships & Cymru with the Confederation of Passenger Transport, he leads on building relationships with local and devolved government to improve bus services across the country. Outside of work, he is also Club Secretary at Penybont Football Club, where he oversees football operations in a voluntary capacity.

Bethan has worked in Local Government, the Public and Private sectors, supporting people with a disability to maximise their opportunities and realise their aspirations for 30 years.

For the last 17 years, she has worked at Exec-Board level, leading organisations and teams to deliver high quality, person-centred services. Whilst she has primarily worked within health and social care, she has also led services within the social housing and welfare-to-work sectors.

Bethan is currently Group MD for a Social Care Company, leading teams that operate Care Homes in both Wales and England. She is passionate about supporting others and has a track record in effective people leadership, performance management and of business development.

Edward, who has lived in Swansea since 2006, had worked with HSBC Commercial Bank for a number of years before setting up a consultancy firm in 2013.

He works with businesses in Wales that contribute positively to their immediate environments. This includes roles with Swansea Council’s Economic Development and Regeneration team, in addition to a renewable rnergy and med-tech provider here in Wales.

Edward initially supports from a strategic perspective however, he can raise funding, restructure activities or coach teams depending on the immediate and longer-term needs.

Originally from Swansea, Gurmel moved to Hatfield to attend the University of Hertfordshire for initial degree in pharmaceutical science after progressing to pharmacy at De Montfort University in Leicester.

Having worked in forensic toxicology, career progression led Gurmel to work for Public Health England (PHE) developing and manufacturing biopharmaceuticals. Whilst at PHE he attained a master’s in healthcare management from Swansea University.

Gurmel moved back to Swansea in 2016 where he currently works as a manager in the National Health Service (NHS), overseeing research in Wales and leading staff approving research at NHS sites. Gurmel works closely with counterparts in England, Northern Ireland, and Scotland so that research processes are aligned and therefore provide a better availability of research to participants. He is also a Vice-Chair Governor at a local primary school.

Gurmel is passionate about supporting diversity in the community, the links between social housing and healthcare which falls in line with the same beliefs and values of Beacon.

Jane has considerable experience in the voluntary sector as past CEO at PLANED. The organisation has been in existence for over 30 years. It is regarded to be the most established Community Led Local Development organisation in Wales.

Having been a Chief Executive of a charity and a volunteer trustee, Jane has experience of both ‘sides’ of operations and is currently employed as a Stakeholder Engagement and Social Value/Community Benefit Consultant working in a range of sectors throughout the UK. Jane has an MBA (Distinction) Dissertation ‘Accountability and Governance in Charities.’

Her personal interests are in Sustainability and Circular Economy with a keen interest in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which works with business, government, and academia to build a framework which is restorative and regenerative by design.

Jane has been involved with rural regeneration policy and actions over 25 years and the Regeneration plans at Beacon being predominantly urban have been an area of interest for her.

Previously worked within the Royal Bank of Scotland Group before joining Santander in 2015. Extensive experience of finance across a wide range of sectors with a specialism around Real Estate.

Jonathan has run a number of Teams and had responsibility for strategy, achieving challenging goals and people development.

Luke has worked in the housing sector for over 20 years. He qualified with a Masters in Housing from Cardiff University and started his housing career as a trainee housing manager with Swansea City Council. He is a Chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Housing.

After several years working for local authorities in Wales, Luke moved to England to work at Places for People Group: one of the largest social housing landlords in the UK. Luke was responsible for large multi-functional teams and led on regeneration projects and operations in the South West and North West of England, whilst working as the Regional Lead for almost a decade.

In 2014, Luke returned to live in and work in Wales as Director of Housing Services with Rhondda Housing Association. Luke took up the role of Chief Executive at RHA in 2018, where he oversaw a significant period of change and progress. During this time, Luke has also held non-executive roles as Chair of the Regional Partnership Board for Cwm Taf Morgannwg and board member of Business in the Community Cymru, the King’s responsible business charity. He is currently a trustee of the Cardiff City FC Community Foundation.

Scott was born in Neath, studied town planning at Sheffield University and trained in London with the National Audit Office where he qualified with the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy.

Scott has extensive experience in both private and public sectors having worked in various senior finance, audit and risk roles in Export Finance, Standard Chartered Bank, Welsh Funding Councils and Cardiff University.

Scott then spent the final 8 years of his career as Vice Principal at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama where he was responsible for finance, audit, risk, HR, estates and all other professional support services.

Scott is a qualified Chartered Surveyor and RICS Registered Valuer.  Currently Director of the property consultancy Savills where he heads up the Development team in Cardiff advising a range of public sector and private clients on property development and regeneration.