LUSH Cymru
LUSH Cymru (Ladies Unite in Social Housing) is a brand-new networking group for professional women who share a passion for delivering and managing affordable housing in Wales.
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Accessible to all women, no matter how early on or seasoned they are in their career, a chance to connect, share ideas, and form friendships with like-minded professionals that share the same passion for working in the social housing sector.
Exclusive invitation only networking events
Stand-out guest speakers from within the sector
Access to untapped talent pools
Branding and sponsorship opportunities
Meet the LUSH Cymru team
Hannah Welfoot
Principal Consultant | Social Housing
Hannah started her career recruiting in the Social Housing sector across Wales in 2006 and over many years, has built trusted working relationships with corporate service and specialist housing professionals from operational to Exec level.
Hannah has invaluable inhouse experience having worked for one of the largest Social Housing Providers in Wales as a Recruitment Business Partner. Shadowing many divisions across the group allowed Hannah to observe first-hand how services and how recruiting on values had an impact on making a positive difference to customers.
As an active member of CIH, Hannah stays abreast of sector changes, understanding how new legislation and initiatives have a knock-on effect on recruitment. Hannah spent a couple of years out of the social housing recruitment world to live in Brazil, where she saw lots of South America and learned to speak Portuguese (albeit incorrectly allowing for several embarrassing stories!) and later moved to America for 2 years, where she spent much of her time in Nashville to feed her love of Country music. To her teenage son’s dismay, Hannah still dusts off the cowboy boots for live country gigs any chance she gets!
Caroline Jones
Associate Director - Development
Caroline is an Associate Director at Savills, as well as a chartered surveyor and a Registered Valuer of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. She works in the Development Department, advising on residential property development and regeneration.
Caroline works with the majority of Housing Associations in South Wales providing them with valuation and consultancy advice on existing assets and new build programmes. She also works in the charity and education sectors, where guidance is required in connection with the Charities Act.
Alongside this, Caroline is also a Board Member and Chair of the Development and Asset Committee at Valleys to Coast. She has been with V2C since 2019 and helped them set up the Development an Asset Committee due to their growing new build pipeline.
Caroline is also PA and taxi driver to her teenager son. She has two mini dachshunds and can be found walking them most weekends in Porthcawl, come rain or shine.
Gemma Clissett
Regional Partnerships Director
Gemma is the Regional Partnerships Director for Lovell, South Wales & West region. Gemma is responsible for driving growth and new business within the region and her primary responsibility is to develop and nurture strategic relationships with key clients including Local Authorities, Housing Associations, Land Agents and Consultants to unlock new multi-tenure housing developments. Gemma has expertise in regeneration projects, partnering and sourcing new opportunities. She has seen the South Wales & West region grow to deliver large scale, multi-tenure schemes through partnership working.
Gemma is also responsible for ensuring the region delivers on it’s social value commitments.
Sophie Wint
Director of Finance and Procurement
Sophie is the Director of Finance and Procurement at Newport City Homes, where she is the lead on all strategic, corporate, and operational aspects of financial accounting and planning, treasury management, and procurement, playing a key role in driving cultural and organisational change.
She is the Chair of CHC’s Finance SDG, actively supporting CHC’s lobbying and advocacy work on key sector issues such as decarbonisation, rent policy, and the social housing grant regime.
She is also a member of the Audit and Risk Management Committee of the National Housing Federation, giving further opportunities to influence housing policy at a national level. Alongside the day job, Sophie can usually be found pounding the pavements training for her next extreme challenge. With several half marathons, marathons and an ultra-marathon under her belt, Sophie has now branched out into triathlons and recently completed a half ironman.
Liz Gibbons
Senior Partner
Liz is a Senior Partner at Acuity Law and the Head of Social Housing. She is a Real Estate solicitor and spends her time advising Housing Associations on high value acquisitions for development purposes, disposals, development agreements, package deals, options, golden brick agreements, section 106 sites and all-things transactional property related. Liz has a background in both commercial and residential property, together with a particular specialism in leasehold law, having previously been appointed Solicitor for Wales for the Leasehold Advisory Service.
Liz also acts as the client relationship Partner within Acuity for all housing associations instructing the firm and connects clients with the additional expertise of property and construction litigation, housing management, employment, construction, planning, commercial and Real Estate Finance specialists as required.
Liz is ranked as a Next Generation Partner by Legal 500 and as a Band 3 solicitor by Chambers and Partners.
Liz is an active participant at Community Housing Cymru and Chartered Institute of Housing events and previously sat on the Board of TPAS Cymru (the Tenant’s Participation Advisory Service Wales).
In her spare time, Liz can be found spending time with her partner and teenage daughter. She’s also a keen musician (playing piano, guitar and cello and with a particular love of signing (karaoke!).
It was very inspiring to see ladies coming together under such a platform with the goal of supporting one another, the guest speakers were very inspirational, they inspired me to reach for goals I would have thought were unattainable before that day, they showed me that I was enough, and that I can do anything that I set my mind to.
Jane Okonkwo – (Head of HR - Elim Housing)
