So how did you end up in governance? A common question us governance folk get asked.

My career started in the NHS over 15 years ago in information governance having graduated from Leeds University in Politics. I knew two things at the time. Firstly, I wanted to work in a sector that helped people and secondly, I was determined to build a career in governance.

Working in data protection provided me a great platform to move into corporate governance. At the time, I was fortunate to work in an organisation that recognised my passion for governance and compliance and promoted me to Head of Corporate Governance, eventually working my way up to Director of Corporate Affairs over the years. My remit initially focused on company secretarial duties (whilst I completed the ICSA Chartered Secretary qualification) and then moved more broadly across legal services, data protection, freedom to speak up (a function in the NHS whereby which staff raise concerns which are then reported up to board) and health and safety.

The NHS is very similar to the housing sector in terms of placing service users at the heart of its decision-making. It’s also very similar in terms of the impact that service can have on people’s lives when you do, or do not, get things right. These similarities are ultimately why I wanted to join the housing sector in my search for a new challenge.

In January 2023, I made the switch from healthcare to housing when I joined Incommunities, a housing association managing more than 22,000 homes across West Yorkshire. What really attracted me to Incommunities was their openness and honesty about their journey but also their exciting future plans and commitment to putting customers first. This really aligned with my personal values and in particular, my passion to improve the connection between corporate teams and customers.

Looking back, it’s fair to say that I put an enormous amount of pressure on myself to become an ‘expert’ on housing governance quickly, especially as we had an IDA on the horizon. I felt almost ashamed of the fact that I was new to sector. I tried to hide it and felt that for some reason, colleagues would not value my knowledge because of this.

What I failed to appreciate was that I was working in an organisation that valued diversity in its truest sense. As a result, I can pinpoint the exact moment I changed my outlook and that was a conversation with our Chief Executive Rachael Dennis. Rachael advised me to wear my experience as a “badge of honour” and to not be afraid to share my ideas to drive improvement and positive change.

That conversation had a profound impact on me and I remember walking out of her office feeling confident and proud. This new feeling motivated me to introduce new ideas such as our Internal Governance Framework and establishing our internal ‘Risk and Assurance Group’. In doing so, we provided stronger assurance up to the board.

So, my advice to anyone who has joined a new sector is to own who you are and consider what you can bring to the table. It’s important that your values align with your organisation. In my case, that is a belief that our customers are why we work so hard to get things right. I think if you do these things, then everything else will fall into place.

I am looking forward to meeting fellow colleagues in housing at the Housing Governance Conference and Exhibition in June and hear all their diverse ideas and experiences.

Syma Dawson will join a roundtable on Building strong assurance frameworks at Housing Governance 2024.