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Landlord makes two senior appointments amid shake-up
A housing association has made two senior appointments in its operational strategy team as it aims to modernise its customer service.
Aster Group promoted Andy Isted to the newly created role of transformation, data and technology director, while Felicity Newman joined from Peabody as operational strategy director.
Formerly the association’s operational strategy director, Mr Isted will now oversee Aster’s strategy to “adapt and modernise” its customer service offer through digital transformation and technology.
Key to this will be effectively and increasingly using data and insights to be more proactive, invest in the right places and ultimately reshape service delivery for its 36,000 homes, Aster said.
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Ms Newman, who is filling Mr Isted’s previous role, joins from Peabody and has a decade of experience in delivering business transformation across the housing, healthcare and technology sectors.
Her role will see her support Mr Isted in “further embedding customer needs and interactions” throughout Aster’s housing services and using learnings to shape the decision-making process and culture at the business.
Both Ms Newman and Mr Isted will report to chief operating and technology officer Emma O’Shea.
Ms O’Shea said: “As we adapt to a fast-evolving social housing landscape, regulatory changes and an increasingly diverse customer base, it’s critical we show flexibility, agility and nimbleness in how we operate and continue to move to an even more dynamic service.
“The needs, complexities and expectations of our customers are also changing at an exponential rate.
“We need to harness technological solutions to make living in one of our homes, as easy as possible so our teams can focus on providing a proactive service in our communities, which is where we can add most value.
“Andy and Felicity bring with them a great deal of experience, and their roles are a sign of our dedication to improving the journey for our customers to make it as seamless and efficient as it can be.”
Mr Isted said: “There’s a number of ways our customers can get in touch, and we fully anticipate that the demand for digital methods to do this to rise in the coming years.
“We can overlay this information on top of the insight from our stock condition survey, which has given us some great foundations to build intelligence and insight about all of our homes.
“But it doesn’t stop there – now it’s about harnessing those learnings and other insights we gain from our daily interactions with customers so we can act quickly and help first time.”
He added that from there, Aster will integrate that knowledge into its other technology systems and “pre-empt issues before they occur”.
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