Our Board of Directors

Vivienne Horton

Interim Chair of the Board

Vivienne is a lawyer by background and worked for over 30 years in local government finishing that phase of her career as Chief Executive of Macclesfield Borough Council. She then worked for a national regulator The Standards Board for England before working in the private sector as Director of the Public Sector team for a niche legal costs consultancy. She joined the Board of Merlin Housing Society in 2012 and became its Chair in 2017. In that role she led the creation of a successful partnership between Merlin, Severn Vale Housing and Bromford Housing Group. She served as Senior Independent Director and Chair of Remuneration and Nominations Committee of Bromford from 2018 until 2021. She is an experienced and influential NED with strong customer focus.

Su Spence

Managing Director

Su started her career in the NHS in London, before moving to a local authority and then into housing. An accountant by background, she has used her financial skills to work in local communities throughout her career to capacity build and effect change through empowerment. Before joining Cornwall Su worked at Poole Housing Partnership, joining as the Finance Director and becoming Chief Executive in 2016.

Her focus throughout that time was on ensuring that the organisation had a culture that delivered the best for local residents and organised and designed services jointly with them. Recognised nationally via TPAS awards and shortlisted for Landlord of the Year in the Inside Housing UK Housing Awards in 2018, Su was proud of the approach locally in Poole and all the officers who worked with her to deliver this. This expertise will be used to drive the change required across Cornwall Housing and will deliver services and teams focused on providing the homes required for local residents.

Amanda Leman

Tenant Non-Executive Director

With a background in direct marketing, Amanda worked for Ogilvy & Mather as a Client Service Manager. With a strong emphasis on developing and servicing client accounts in terms of quality and performance she delivered best practice for companies such as BUPA, Royal Mail and B.T. Appointed to work with Broadsystem Ltd in the role of Call Centre Manager she redesigned and implemented structures and processes to deliver high levels of service for clients such as The Times, GMTV and Celador. In 1998 she won an industry award for a Pan-European telemarketing campaign conducted for PictureTel International.

Moving to the West Country in 2000 to work with The Marketing Architects (TMA Global), Amada has since qualified as a life coach with a degree in arts. Having lived experience as a tenant she enjoys working with the Board to ensure the tenant voice is heard and being part of a wider team engaged in the transformational journey that Cornwall Housing is on to deliver high quality homes and housing services to the communities of Cornwall. 

Dawn Sowerby

Independent Non-Executive Director and Chair of People and Culture Committee

Dawn is an experienced strategic leader with a professional background in HR and Organisational Development, and she is the Founder and Managing Director of The Culture Business.  Dawn is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD, is a qualified executive coach and has over 25 years’ experience in senior HR & OD transformation roles across public, private and not-for-profit sectors, including executive and non-executive board level positions.

Dawn’s passion is for creating workplaces that bring the best out in people and believes that we can only deliver the highest quality homes and housing services by doing that. She has a track record of delivering team turnarounds through supportive and engaging leadership, and has previously worked with the highly regarded Corporate Rebels, also featuring as one of their guest bloggers.  Dawn has also spoken several times at Employee Engagement seminars.

Karen Ayling

Independent Non-Executive Director and Chair of Audit, Finance and Risk Committee

Initially a History teacher Karen has worked in Social Housing since the mid 1980’s. Firstly for Local Authorities and since 1992 for Housing Associations. She qualified as a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing in 1992, becoming a fellow in 2000. From 2004 onwards she has held Executive roles: Director of Housing at Thames Valley HA based in London and the SE and from 2008 as Managing Director of Westcountry based in Devon and Cornwall. Karen has been a freelance interim Executive since 2014.

Karen has covered most strategic and operational areas from Operations including Repairs & Maintenance, Asset Planning, Estate Management, the delivery of statutory functions such as Homelessness and Housing Register, Shared Ownership and development of Retirement Living models.

Latterly her work as an interim has included supporting Boards to develop decision making and monitoring practices alongside strategic service redesign and implementation. Previously she has held non-executive positions in the South West with Synergy (now Aster Housing). Currently she is Chair of a local recycling charity in South Devon and Deputy Chair of Arc Aspire, a homelessness charity based in Taunton.

Kate Atkinson

Tenant Non-Executive Director

Kate has a professional background in social work and has spent most of her working life in health and social care. For the past 14 years she has been in a lived experience role as Service User Consultant to Cornwall Foundation Trust. In this role she draws on her own experience of using services to ensure that the voice of patients, carers and citizens is reflected in all aspects of service planning and delivery.

This is Kate’s first board appointment and as a Tenant Non-Executive Director, appointed in 2021, she is looking forward to playing her part in the continuing development of a high quality and responsive housing service. Outside of work Kate is very involved in village life and enjoys spending quality time with her cats.

Kevin Hawke

Tenant Non-Executive Director

Kevin has lived in Cornwall all his life, and in Falmouth since 1984 spending the last 4 years of his education at Falmouth School. Most of Kevin’s working life has been spent working in, managing and owning public houses before starting his own business in 2007. He has enjoyed undertaking many qualifications in project management and business management with help from local providers, broadening his experience.

Kevin moved into a Cornwall Housing property in 2002 with his wife and they have 2 adult sons. When Kevin isn’t working, he enjoys golf, cricket and walking his 2 “children”, basset hounds Matilda and Gertrude. Kevin is looking forward to the challenges ahead and representing tenants on the CHL board.

Mark Read

Cornwall Council Board Member

Mark is currently Service Director for Customer and Business Operations at Cornwall Council.  Cornish born and bred, Mark has worked in Local Government for over 35 years, starting his career with Restormel Borough Council and moving to Cornwall Council when it was formed as a new Unitary Authority in 2009.

During his career, Mark has provided senior leadership to a variety of services (including Housing) and is passionate about delivering the best possible services to customers and service users with a strong focus on customer need, efficiency and staff culture and wellbeing. Alongside leading services, Mark has had responsibility for the delivery of a number of transformation programmes for the Council including the £20m Digital Cornwall programme and playing a significant role in the transition of Cornwall from seven local authorities into one.

Married with two children, Mark is delighted to be a member of the Cornwall Housing Board.

Robert Stronge

Independent Non-Executive Director and Senior Independent Director

An experienced housing professional, Robert brings over 35 years experience to Cornwall Housing and has worked at senior levels with major housing associations operating in both England and Scotland. Robert was formerly Managing Director of Guinness Hermitage a division of The Guinness Partnership operating across the west of England including Cornwall, interim Chief Executive at Shire Housing Association in East Ayrshire, Scotland and has also provided management services to a south west based housing association. 

Robert is Chair of the Westward Housing Group, who operate across Devon and Cornwall. He also recently led the Board of the community based landlord, the North Devon Homes Group based in Barnstaple.

Graham Clarke

Independent Non-Executive Director

Graham was Finance Director of Cornwall Hospice Care from 2016 until retiring in early 2024. In this role he had responsibility for all of the non-clinical activities of the charity. Prior to that he spent five years at the Financial Reporting Council in London as their Finance Director. In his earlier career, Graham worked for Group 4 Security, Kraft Foods and Xansa plc in various finance roles in the UK and Australia. He was CFO of GS1 UK between 2004 and 2011.

Graham is a Chartered Management Accountant and was a Board Member of Magna Housing Association from 2016 to 2022. He was appointed to the Board of Westward Housing in October 2023.

He is married with two grown up boys and lives in Devon. With his wife, Graham is busy walking the Southwest Coast Path. He is a lifelong supporter of Sunderland Football Club. 

Rob Dustan

Independent Non-Executive Director

With over 30 years of experience in bid strategy, project management, and sales, Rob Dustan is passionate about driving transformative change and delivering results. Rob combines his expertise in crafting winning proposals with a strategic approach to problem-solving and growth. His extensive background spans diverse industries, including services to support Local and Central Government, where he has consistently demonstrated his ability to win contracts ranging from £20 million to over £1.5 billion.

Rob thrives on challenges, using his deep understanding of client needs and competitive landscapes to deliver innovative solutions. At the heart of his success is his commitment to collaboration, working closely with teams to ensure every bid not only meets but exceeds expectations. Rob’s proactive and hands-on approach ensures that each project is delivered with precision, purpose, and a relentless focus on success.

In his spare time, you will find Rob either cycling distances most would consider an impossibly long drive, or tending to his garden, balancing colour and design with encouraging biodiversity at home.