INTERVIEW
BUILDING HOMES FOR ISLANDERS Steve Williams has been the chief executive officer of the Guernsey Housing Association (GHA) for the past 13 years. In that time, he has overseen a huge increase in the social housing provided by the organisation, along with the provision of partial ownership schemes to allow islanders to get on the property ladder. Steve was recognised with the ‘Industry Professional of the Year Award’ at the 2018 Property and Construction Awards. He told us about his time at the helm of the GHA and the aspirations he still has for the future of the organisation.
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Guernsey Property and Construction
When Steve Williams spotted an advert for the role of CEO of the GHA in the UK housing press in the spring of 2006, he had no idea of the impact it would have on his life and career path. Having worked in the sector since he left university, he had a plethora of experience in both marketing and developing shared ownership and housing association schemes throughout the UK. He had also spent time in the private sector to experience working in a profitdriven environment. When Steve saw the GHA advert he was based in Wiltshire as group development director for a housing association with a portfolio of 18,000 properties across the south-west and Hampshire. Enjoying his job and with his family settled, he certainly hadn’t been considering a move to the Channel Islands. But with his wife’s encouragement, he applied for the role and was offered it the same day he was interviewed.
The GHA in 2006 was a very different body to the organisation Steve now manages. It had only been established in 2002 and had built 163 properties in that time. Aside from Steve, the staff consisted of one full-time and one part-time employee. From the start, he knew that working closely with others in the industry would be key to the GHA’s success. “I understood the impact of what the GHA was doing, especially in a small place such as Guernsey and with the considerable amounts of money that were being put into our projects. A few feathers had been ruffled by the time I arrived so I was very keen to build relationships. I wanted to build up trust in the GHA as an organisation and the role we could play in the island, so I did my best to engage with a wide panoply of stakeholders to make sure they were confident in our ability to fulfil the role.” In Steve’s previous roles, the focus had been on developing