Industry Insights From An Ex-Finance Director with Tina Barnard

The HIP: The Housing Industry Podcast

Tina Barnard spent her early career as an accountant before moving into the housing sector. She’s now Chief Executive at Watford Community Housing and in this episode, we discover her journey into housing and get her expert insights into funding, joint ventures and more.
Watford Community Housing has established joint venture companies with local authority partners. We get a behind-the-scenes on how these partnerships came about and how Watford Community Housing has been leveraging them to create a win-win situation for all parties, as well as the challenges that had to be worked through to make them happen.
We also dive deep into the challenges that the industry faces today. We speak about how important it is that we keep building homes, securing government funding and what the future looks like for Watford Community Housing and the industry as a whole.
In this episode, we cover:

• How Tina found her way into the industry and her Chief Executive position.
• What a ‘numbers person’ brings to the table.
• The benefits of joint ventures and insights into the partnerships that Watford Community Housing has formed.
• The challenges they’ve faced in establishing joint ventures.
• The challenges the sector is currently facing and what organisations should be seeking government financial support for
• Watford Community Housing’s plans for tackling EPC C and net-zero targets.
• What does the future of social housing look like?
• How we can get more people interested in a career in housing?
• How can we better inspire and develop the next generation of leaders?