Our Board
Our board members come from a wide range of backgrounds, giving their time voluntarily to help us run Women’s Pioneer Housing.
A register of Board Declarations of Interests is avaliable upon request.
Ruth Buckingham, Chair of the Board
Ruth is a successful consultant with a background in strategic planning, performance management, service reviews, project management and business improvement. She currently works for SUMS Consulting a not-for-profit membership organisation providing expert consultancy to the higher education sector. Prior to this she worked in the housing sector and local government for over 20 years where she helped to deliver improvements in multiple service areas. Before becoming Chair of the Board, she was the Chair of the Homes and Services Committee and a member of both the Audit & Risk Committee and Remuneration & Nominations Committee.
Judith Page, Vice Chair of the Boards and Chair of the Development & Asset Management Committee
Judith has over 25 years’ experience working in property-related roles in social housing, local government and most recently in the heritage sector with a role at the Science Museum. This includes a number Executive Director roles during her nearly 20 years as a senior manager. Alongside her Board role at WPH, Judith is also on the Board of Homes for Lambeth.
Judith’s breadth of experience gives knowledge of new build housing; building compliance; procurement and contract management; repairs and maintenance and health and safety.
Michael Reed, Chair of Audit and Risk Committee
Mike is an experienced finance and internal audit professional who, prior to retirement, held a number of corporate and policy roles in the Senior Civil Service.
He now works part-time providing governance seminars for private and public sector organisations.
Yẹmí Aládérun Chair of the Remuneration and Nominations Committee
Yẹmí is an architect and head of development at Meridian Water, Enfield Council. Yẹmí advocates for education, income & housing equity and broadening access to the built environment. Yẹmí is a board member of Women’s Pioneer Housing association and the Quality of Life Foundation. In 2020, she was selected as one the UK’s next generation of boundary-pushing designers and innovators by the Architect’s Journal in its 40 under 40 awards.
Emily Orme, Chair of Homes and Services Committee
Emily is a non-practising qualified barrister specialising in housing, local government, and property. She has been recommended in the Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners and is author of a number of publications from books to blogs about the legal framework that surrounds social housing. Since 2016, Emily moved into housing management has established herself as a talented and innovative senior leader in the social housing sector, speaking regularly at seminars and conferences about the challenges facing the sector. Emily has previous Board experience with Zebra Housing Association, a smaller provider with circa 130 homes in central London. She recently stood down after 4 years as Chair of Zebra and has also held roles as Chair of Audit and Risk Committee, and Vice Chair of the Board.
Emily is delighted to be able to bring her skills and experience to the WPH Board. Her values are strongly aligned with WPH and she is passionate about promoting supportive environments for women, not just in housing but in all walks of life.
Catherine Parsons
Catherine has over twenty years experiencing of working in housing and the voluntary sector supporting people experiencing homelessness and poverty, young people and people living with serious mental illness.
She is currently the Managing Director of Big Issue Changing Lives CIC, which works to provide opportunities for those affected by poverty to earn, learn and thrive.
Kemi Ayodele
Kemi is a senior leader within the built environment sector with over 18 years’ experience of leading diverse and highly motivated teams to deliver exemplary results at every stage of the development lifecycle. She has led delivery of large-scale mixed-use developments across residential, commercial and hotel schemes. Kemi has worked on projects globally having delivered projects in Africa, Europe and the Middle East.
Leyla Rahman
Leyla has received an award for over 25 years’ in Health and Beauty, and has experience in leading a team to achieve goals on sales, NHS prescription and private services in the pharmacy team. She leads recruitment, health and safety, leaning and development, risk and compliance audits to ensure sure Standard Operating Procedures are followed and clinical governance on confidentiality of patients is followed across the department.
She has been a resident since 2001 and is currently a member of the WPH Homes & Services Committee and Development and Asset Management Committee.
Maryam Antonini-Soumaré
Maryam Antonini-Soumaré has been a resident with Women’s pioneer since 2014 and is a member of the Home & Services Committee.
She has worked in the city for financial institutions in investment banking and her expertise in languages enabled her to translate and communicate working closely with and on behalf of senior managing directors, executive chairs and general managers.
In the last few years she has become a voice over artist in French and Italian languages and has worked as a voice over artist for well-known international brands.