My RHA
New Chief Executive
5th December 2022 | posted in News
Railway Housing Association has appointed Matthew Sugden as its new Chief Executive.
Matthew will officially take up the role in April 2023 upon the retirement of Anne Rowlands, who has spent the last 14 years as the Association’s CEO.
He is currently Executive Director for Governance and Strategy at Accent Housing, a national housing association. After working in private practice as a solicitor, Matthew has spent his entire 18-year housing career at Accent, initially joining as a Solicitor before becoming Head of Legal and then Executive Director for Governance and Business Assurance in 2018 before taking up his current role in 2021, with responsibility for the people, strategy, communications, insight, health and safety, legal and governance, procurement and business assurance teams.
During his four years as an Executive Director, Matthew has led on the introduction of Best Companies which resulted in Accent being a two-star organisation and top 100 company to work for in 2022. He has also sat on Regulator of Social Housing’s Tenant Satisfaction Measures Steering Group as the Northern Housing Consortium representative and reset Accent’s Governance Framework to ensure a strong resident voice within Accent’s strategic decision-making process.
At Railway Housing Association he will lead a staff team of 38 who are responsible for delivering services to people living in over 1,600 homes in 24 local authority areas.
Matthew said: "I am delighted to have been given the opportunity to lead Railway Housing Association, an organisation with a proud and rich history. I look forward to building on the great work that Anne has done over the last 14 years and working with colleagues to continue to deliver excellent services for our residents."
Chris Fawcett, Chair of the Railway Housing Board, said: “We are delighted to have been able to attract someone of Matthew’s calibre to Railway Housing Association.
“His knowledge and experience will prove invaluable as we continue to deliver our business strategy for the benefit of our residents and address the challenges we face in the future, including meeting Government targets on carbon emissions.
“The Board and everyone else at Railway Housing Association would like to thank Anne for her tireless service and the important contribution she has made to the success of the Association during her 14 years as Chief Executive.”
