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Platform’s development team on its ‘game-changer’ deals and getting into a development career
As part of Inside Housing’s new series on women and development, Jess McCabe sits down with Platform’s development directorate. They talk about getting deals done, how the landlord has built up steam on its pipeline and how to build a career in the sector
Platform’s development team on its “game-changer” deals and getting into a development careerI’m on Teams with four directors from the development team at Platform Housing, and we’re talking about golf.
This has come up for two reasons. One: the role of golf and similar pursuits in making development a bit of a boys’ club. And two: the role of expensive social events in getting deals across the line in the development world.
Platform, to be clear, is trying to navigate making deals in other ways when large spending on hospitality is part of the wider development culture.
“We have to work harder to deliver on what we say we will do, and build our brands and reputation to then have a seat at that table,” says Kate Ellison, director of development, growth and innovation at the housing association. “It’s much harder to do that when you don’t have drinks at the golf course, or you can’t invite people on thousands of pounds worth of hospitality. So we do have to work harder to get the same results.”
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We are talking to Platform’s growth and development directorate as part of Inside Housing’s new series on women in development. Four in the directorate of the 10th-biggest developing housing association in the UK are women. The exception on the team is executive director Gerraint Oakley.
Women are under-represented on executive teams of housing associations – the Chartered Institute of Housing’s diversity data tool found that 47% of executives are women, compared to 54% of the housing workforce. It is hard to pin down exactly, but anecdotally it seems like the representation specifically among development directors is even lower.
As L&Q’s outgoing development director Vicky Savage told Inside Housing at the start of this series, it was this imbalance which led her to set up the G15 mentoring project for women. She said: “At entry level in development departments, you’ve got really good representation of women. They’re not pushing through to become directors, and they’re certainly not pushing through to become executive leads.”
Bucking the trend
So we wanted to sit down with the Platform team, because it partly bucks this trend. Over the course of 40 minutes, we talk about everything from gender and diversity in development jobs, to how they got into housing. And golf.
“This is the first time I’ve worked with an exclusively female team of directors,” says Paula Heatley, director of development, delivery and sales at Platform.
One reason, she suggests, could be that many senior-level development professionals come to housing associations from the private sector.
She observes: “If you look at all the biographies of some of the senior people across some of the larger housing associations, a lot of them have a private sector background. And the private sector is still very male-dominated. And I don’t even think you need to keep that off the record, because it’s a fact of life, isn’t it?”
Ms Ellison says this is particularly true of the part of the private sector she is often interacting with: the buying and selling of land. “The land market is very male-dominated,” she says.
“It hasn’t really moved on in terms of land agents, promoters – they all tend to be male and I think the other thing I’d probably flag as well is class. It has been a very middle-class kind of profession, and male dominated and middle-class. It’s opening up what was quite a closed world for women – working-class women – or diverse backgrounds.”
Laura Osborne, regional director of sales and marketing, knows a bit about this, having joined Platform after 27 years working for private developer Crest Nicholson. “I was 23 and found a job as a salesperson. I didn’t know anything about it. I absolutely loved it from day one,” she sums up. “I just love handing over keys to someone to their first home, or not necessarily their first home, but such a monumental stage in their life, whether they’re divorcing, whether they’re running away from their husband, or having a baby.”
She developed her career from there in the private sector. Ms Osborne first came across housing associations through working on Section 106 homes, and it appealed. “So then the opportunity came up with Platform, and I just jumped at it. It’s been much better than I could have imagined.”
So what does she think about how developers in the private sector are doing on gender? “I’m seeing that improve in the private sector,” she says. “It’s taken a long time. The deals were done in the pub and on the golf course and that’s definitely less so now, but it’s still an element there. If you didn’t play golf, then you were certainly out of the loop.
“But from my experience with the housing associations, it’s definitely more diverse and more outward thinking.”
She adds: “I haven’t looked at gender as a barrier. I’ve been mentored and looked up to different people, and it’s their qualities, their values and their work ethic that I’ve taken away, not the gender element of it.”
Lightbulb moment
Helen Newbury, director of programme at Platform, originally wanted to be a primary school teacher, but “didn’t get the grades”, she explains. Then she started thinking about what else she loved, and landed on geography and an urban studies course. She opted for the housing studies class because it involved a year work placement. She was placed with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, in its survey department. “Once I found it, it was like a lightbulb going off. It was just like, ‘This is what I want to do. This is amazing,’” she recalls.
But most people are still landing in the sector, and in development careers, out of a mixture of chance encounters and pre-existing connections to the housing association world. “A lot of people don’t know anything about RPs [registered providers], and then they suddenly find this truly motivated environment,” Ms Newbury says. She wonders: how can the sector get out into schools and explain that this can be a career path? For those who work in development, she notes, most are going for a “standard” role, like planning, surveyor, or a role in private sector development.
“Once you do get here, you realise how amazing it is, and it does drive you, and it is a brilliant career choice,” she adds. “It touches on that absolute basic human need for a home. It’s so important.”
Ms Heatley says: “I suppose you could say construction is in my blood, because I’m from four generations of bricklayers. But if you’d have told 17-year-old me that I’d be working in construction now, I would have gone absolutely mad because I was the rebel and didn’t want to do everything that my family did.”
She went to Southampton to study sociology at university, then ended up working in retail. “And then an opportunity came up at the Papworth Trust, which was my first [job in my] housing career. Because I’d got that sales and retail background, I started off leading customer care teams, but very quickly got into project management, developing supported housing and that kind of thing. And I just loved it.”
From there she went to work at Peabody, working up from new homes manager to assistant director level. “Peabody just really nurtured me,” she says. “I was there for quite a long time, and grew my career in a variety of different mergers.”
“I chose to go into housing, in an RP, and I actually took, not a demotion, but a kind of side downward step to get there,” adds Ms Ellison. She studied architecture then civic design at the University of Liverpool. “I imagined my career would be very design focused, and I loved it at university, but I didn’t love it in practice. It was very detailed, and I’m not necessarily a detailed person,” she explains.
Then, around 12 years ago, she was working at Wirral Council as an urban design officer on the Wirral Waters project – a huge regeneration project on the River Wirral, which involves 13,000 new homes.
One of her colleagues went on to work as a managing director at a housing association, and encouraged her to apply for a job there. She didn’t get it, but three months later the association offered her another role. “I just didn’t know this [type of role] existed where you could use all your different skills in a different way, but with a real purpose at the end of it,” she says. And even though she took an initial step down in seniority, soon she was able to build up her career and progress.
Doing it right
When I later ask Mr Oakley, executive director of development at Platform, for his view on his team, he emails back quickly. “I am a huge admirer of what this team has achieved and all of them have shown how well they can take on many of the obstacles the development world can throw at them,” he says. “We added them to the team simply because of what they are capable of and while the landscape remains challenging, I would encourage women who want to work in the rewarding world of social housing to look at them as direct examples of the diversity of opportunities that are on offer.”
It is clear the team is doing something right – Platform completed more than 1,000 homes last year, bringing it into the top 10 Biggest Builders in the sector. The association also started 1,645 homes last financial year, the third-highest figure of any UK housing association.
“I haven’t looked at gender as a barrier. I’ve been mentored and looked up to different people, and it’s their qualities, their values and their work ethic that I’ve taken away, not the gender element of it”
Ms Heatley says: “The successful figures we have produced this year are a result of decisions we made over three years ago to keep building homes. The entire commitment was backed by a robust financial model, that we ensured would remain throughout and also continue beyond this year, reflected elsewhere in our great starts and pipeline statistics.”
Does that bring us back to negotiations on or off the golf course?
It is not as clear cut a position as just deciding not to engage, as Ms Heatley points out. “We often have conversations about the corporate entertaining, and is it morally and ethically right for us to be spending what is essentially our tenants’ money on this kind of thing, just so we can get a seat around the table?”
On the other hand, she says, engaging in these practices could lead to “deals that are essentially advantageous for our future customers”.
“You can build relationships in other ways. A coffee and a chat is just as valid,” Ms Ellison adds.
Platform has also made an effort to participate in roundtables and events that raise its profile. But, Ms Heatley adds: “We’re having to work a lot harder to build those relationships, because we’re not getting ourselves around a golf course or a cricket match.”
Platform has also got involved in a number of what Ms Ellison calls “game-changer” deals, which have cemented its reputation. This includes a joint deal with Keepmoat to build 600 homes on the site of the old Boots headquarters, after the original developer, Ilke Homes, went into administration.
The aim, Ms Ellison says, is to “get ourselves out there. Show what we can do. Get ourselves around the table. We’ll promote the comms. We’ll make sure the messages are getting out to the right audience. And then, ultimately, we’ll get invited to bid more and get involved because we’ll deliver.”
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