Our Board members

Mervyn Jones
(Chair of Association)

Mervyn has over 45 years’ experience of regulating and managing affordable housing to CEO level. From 2006 to 2020 he was a Director of Savills Housing Division delivering consultancy services to providers of affordable housing; he continues to act as an independent consultant.

He provided advice on housing policy and routes for new entrants to the sector, wrote the Regulator’s first guidance on diversification and is the editor of the National Housing Federation's (NHF) Guides to Repairs and Maintenance and Asset Management, the Chartered Institute of Housing's (CIH) policy work on flexibility in asset management “Appreciating Assets” and the report “Viability and Vitality” for the Tenant Services Authority (TSA). He was formerly a Board Member of Heylo RP and Hackney Homes.

Mervyn lived and worked in inner North London for 20 years before moving to Barnet. His children currently live in Islington.

Alwyn Lewis (Chair of Property Investment Committee)

Alwyn Lewis is the former Chief Executive of Hornsey Housing Trust and has had a 40-year career in the third sector.

He has a track record in social housing and a reputation for putting tenants first and for making things happen. He was attracted to the role at ISHA because of our strong social purpose, our desire to deliver high-quality services and to positively effect social change, especially with ethnically diverse communities who experience social and economic disadvantages.

Alwyn shares ISHA's vision to working with us and residents to co-create homes and communities where everyone can flourish.

Heather Topel
(Chair of Audit & Risk Committee)

Heather has extensive experience in town planning, property and development. Heather is currently the Estate Director for the All England Lawn Tennis Club and is responsible for oversight of development projects and estate resilience.

Heather has also held director roles at Grosvenor Property UK, Cambridge University and AECOM, focused on planning, designing and delivering major residential and commercial developments across the UK. As a local resident, Heather is delighted to be involved with ISHA due to its commitment to providing quality, affordable housing for local people.

Jonathan Bunt
(Chair (designate) Audit & Risk)

Jonathan is a qualified accountant and public finance expert. He worked in finance for local authorities for around 17 years, including as Chief Finance Officer and Strategic Director of Finance and Investment at the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham.

Jonathan has held numerous non-executive Director roles, including Vice Chair and Chair of the Treasury Committee at Golden Lane Housing, Chair of Audit and Risk at Broadway Living Ltd, Christian Action Housing Association, and Barnsbury Housing Association, where he previously chaired the Asset Management Group. He also co-founded and is a Director of Beehive Affordable Homes, acquiring housing association homes for lease to local authorities at affordable rents. Since 2017 he has been a consultant, advising local authorities on new affordable housing vehicles, capital planning and financial modelling.

Justin Fisher
(Chair of Remuneration Committee)

Justin has worked in the social housing sector for 27 years, specialising in IT and asset management within the housing sector, but also in other areas such as highways, infrastructure and environmental services.

He has consulted and worked with over 100 housing providers in the last 15 years, including a diverse group of social landlords. He was previously a Board Member for seven years for an award-winning rural specialist provider in Lincolnshire.

He is currently the Product Owner for a software system that manages over 1m social homes for around 200 housing providers. Prior to that he worked as a housing, assets and IT consultant, and in 2018 spent eight months working with The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham on their new IT implementation and their asset management strategy.

Daven Masri

Daven is an ISHA leaseholder. Owning his own home improved his life so much that he was inspired to apply for a Board Member role to ensure that others could continue to benefit from the same opportunity. He hopes that his perspective will serve the Board well and lead to more affordable homes that enrich the communities ISHA operates within.

An environmental engineer for more than 10 years, Daven is a Founding Director at Wave Consulting Digital Engineers which focuses on Building Information Modelling (BIM) and environmental design. He strongly believes in creating homes that perform well, using fewer resources in construction and occupancy.

June Riley

June began her training in accountancy by entering the NHS as a graduate trainee shortly after leaving University. She is a qualified accountant and completed an accredited MBA with Manchester Business School to add value to her career as an accountant.

June has worked in housing for almost 20 years and was a Finance Director in a housing association managing over 17,000 homes. She is now a Group Finance Director in one of the largest mental health charities in the country.

June has served in a voluntary capacity on several Boards, including Newham Homes Ltd, which was managing over 27,000 homes. She is currently serving as a Senior Independent Director on The Barnet Group Board and is pleased to be a Non-Executive Director on ISHA's Board.

Mohammed Baporia

Mohammed is a family member of both an ISHA leaseholder and an ISHA shared owner. Like Daven, his personal experience inspired him to apply for a board member role. Mohammed is keen to give back to the community and help ISHA to deliver quality and truly affordable housing to those that need it most. He also aims to ensure the high standards set by ISHA’s Board are being met.

Mohammed is a qualified accountant and tax manager working for a UK real estate investment trust.

John Biggs

John joined the Board in September 2022. He was the Executive Mayor of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets from 2014 to 2022 and a former London Assembly member. For several years, John was also an active social housing resident in his local residents’ association.

John shares ISHA's frustration with the current climate of ‘unaffordable affordability’ and believes we must challenge this in our policies, particularly in the current cost-of-living crisis. John also believes that by working with residents, and other partners, ISHA can help address the problems of inequality that place people in positions of financial or other vulnerability.

London has given John and his family great opportunities and he wants to give back to future generations.

Gemma Colby

Gemma Colby is Head of Customer Experience (CX) at First Central Insurance Group, where she leads the CX team to design and deliver the business-wide CX strategy, bring the customer's voice to life, and lead improvement of the end-to-end (E2E) customer experience. She is an experienced Customer Service and CX professional and award-winning CX Leader.

Gemma joined the Board in September 2022. She sees it as a great opportunity to transform lives and is excited to contribute to an organisation that has ambitious plans with a social purpose.

Gemma is passionate about customer experience and using it to deliver amazing end-to-end experiences. She feels it is a great time to join our Board, help us deliver our strategy and transform our service delivery to change people’s lives for the better.

Ruth Davison
(Chief Executive)

A passionate believer that mixed communities work best for everyone and help make great places, Ruth is proud to lead ISHA as CEO. Building genuinely affordable rented and shared ownership homes and being a fantastic landlord - helping both communities and individuals flourish – is what motivates her.

Ruth joined the organisation at the beginning of 2019, having previously worked as Director of Policy and External Affairs at the National Housing Federation (NHF) for more than a decade and before that in strategic roles in the NHS and local government. She also worked at the Audit Commission and in higher education.

Despite ISHA’s good reputation, Ruth is keen to drive ever-higher standards of service delivery and accountability, especially to residents. Ruth was appointed to the Board in March 2021.