People
Steve's Biography
Steve has almost 25 years’ experience in housing and development. After graduating in Business Economics, he held various roles in development at Rosebery, L&Q and Family Housing before moving into consultancy. Recent clients have included the GLA, NHF, LSH, Optivo, Southern, Lewisham Council and Camden Council plus many smaller associations and cooperatives.
Initially, Steve worked in project delivery. This included delivering many small and medium sized sites, in addition to a £9m SRB project in Woolwich plus a £12m regeneration project in Shadwell, Tower Hamlets.
Steve now specialises in financial modelling. He has developed bespoke models for many Housing Associations, JVs, housing delivery companies and the business plans of smaller RPs. In addition, Steve’s recent modelling work has been used to help the GLA set the grant rates that are currently in use.
Visakha's Biography
Visakha is an executive consultant and has worked in housing for over 25 years. She has director and board experience in commissioning affordable housing, regeneration and strategic development. This includes working for Local Authorities, Housing Associations and the private sector.
Her work has involved commissioning affordable development programmes at both local and regional levels. She has also been responsible for strategic policy, business planning, new business and corporate capacity building.
Her portfolio of work with clients is very diverse and includes structuring and delivering development management and leadership programmes, advising and developing client marketing and communications, assisting with development resources such as sourcing interim placements and expertise for development projects and directly providing mentoring and coaching, including at executive level.
Dave's Biography
Dave is a motivational leader with over 26 years of experience at director level in development, regeneration, asset management and repairs, working in both Housing Associations and Local Authorities.
Dave has built and managed large teams and led in the successful delivery of large scale development and regeneration programmes, PFI, large scale tenant led transfers, stock disposals, mergers, acquisitions, major estate regeneration projects, area renewal, major works and decent homes delivery programmes, repair programmes and partnership frameworks.
From a surveying background Dave also brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in construction, contracts, procurement and contract management.
During his career Dave has consistently implemented and managed successful change whilst always building and maintaining excellent working relationships.
David's Biography
David is a self-motivated and driven individual with a proven track record of bringing change to organisations that want to be leaders in fire safety.
David has renowned skill sets developed during his time in the London Fire Brigade and fire safety roles with groups such as the NHS, the Grenfell Team, Phoenix Community Housing, Cignia and Ealing Council.
David is a firm believer in long term fire safety planning and is an excellent communicator at all levels. He has committed to and applied with great success for nearly five years, to some of the most challenging roles in the fire safety sector. During a period of time that has seen the fire safety landscape change beyond recognition, David has been able to successfully deliver real change and improvements across the sector.
Phil's Biography
Phil has worked in social housing for 18 years and has extensive knowledge and experience in delivering a wide range of development services and schemes of all shapes and sizes. Phil has worked at various levels from project officer to director, and been involved in a number of development disciplines, including project management, new business, land buying, financial modelling, procurement, sales and management, strategic planning, staff management and training.
Phil’s speciality includes developing, building and maintaining Excel-based financial toolkits, viability modelling, options appraisals, and procurement. From 2011 to 2017 Phil was responsible for the development and maintenance of the podplan suite of toolkits.
Phil has worked as a consultant since 2011 for a range of Housing Association and Local Authority clients both in and outside London. Phil currently sits on the board of Colne Housing Society and their jointly owned development company, Iceni Homes ltd, as a non-executive director. Phil’s qualifications include a PG Dip in Management.
James's Biography
James has worked in social housing for 15 years. He has extensive experience in new business, land buying, construction project management, programme management, staff management and financial modelling. He has held senior management and consultancy roles in a number of G15 development teams. James has managed some of the largest grant funding programmes in the country and has an exhaustive knowledge of GLA / HE capital funding rules, rent setting and audit requirements.
In recent years he has specialised in development data management and business intelligence. He has worked within a number of large development and finance teams to improve accuracy and visibility of information about their programmes, embedding best practice and often working with clients to code bespoke tools in various programming languages.
James is the lead software developer for our Optimix suite of toolkits.
Rachel's Biography
Rachel is a Development Consultant who has worked in housing for over five years. Following an initial role on a housing graduate scheme, Rachel has held a variety of roles in the sector within development, asset management and major works for both Local Authorities and ALMOs.
Rachel is experienced in managing projects through the whole development process from feasibility to delivery, procurement, resident consultation, options appraisals and governance.
Vince's Biography
Vince has worked as an application analyst and support consultant for over 5 years, previously in the legal and logistics sectors.
After being involved in extensive testing of our Optimix suite of toolkits as an external consultant for the last few years, Vince has joined the team as Optimix Manager to continue this work in greater scope and depth, and to support the continued quality, functionality and improvement of our modelling software offering.
Charlie's Biography
Charlie started his career as an accounts assistant at an IT support consultancy. He quickly progressed to become accounts manager, responsible for overseeing all financial operations of the business, equipping him with the organisational and financial skills required for his role at Beacon.
Charlie's work at Beacon includes managing all financial aspects of the business as well as day-to-day operational support. Charlie works closely with the partners and consultants, ensuring smooth delivery of all projects.