Tough at the Top?

In my last post on the GreenSquareAccord Resident Support site, I suggested — in fact, I almost demanded — that it was time for Ruth Cooke to step aside. This followed the recent downgrading by the Regulator of Social Housing. Her whole tenure, I claim, as a resident who has skin in the game, hard facts, and lived experience to back it up, has been mixed at best.

I’ve tried to be fair, to look for a positive angle. But if I’m honest, I’ve not seen progress. I’ve seen failed and stalled corporate strategy programmes — we’re on our third now. While it’s true that COVID played a part, that and the mess of a merger she was brought in to oversee can’t keep serving as the go-to excuses they’ve become for GreenSquareAccord ever since. With this latest downgrading, it’s clear she’s not fit for the role. She’s not match-fit — it’s just not happening under her leadership.

Also this week came the announcement that Victor da Cunha, Group Chief Executive at Curo, is stepping down after 15 years, under the guise that “it was time.” In his words: “After nearly fifteen incredible years and countless highs, the time has come for me to step down as CEO of Curo and return to London for my next adventure.”

And with that, he’s moving to Notting Hill Genesis as Chief Customer Officer.

So what does that mean for Notting Hill Genesis? What does it mean for their current CEO? And more broadly, how long should any CEO remain in post?

Curo to Notting Hill

Victor da Cunha’s move from Curo to Notting Hill Genesis caught my attention — not because he’s leaving after fifteen years, but because of where he’s going. You don’t step away from the top of one housing association just to take a step down somewhere else. You do it because the next job is already being lined up.

Curo under Victor’s leadership has been seen as a steady organisation: strong governance, solid finances, and a relatively open relationship with residents. The regulator rated them G1 and C1, which in this climate is about as good as it gets. There were still delays and complaints, but Curo tended to acknowledge them — something many providers still struggle with.

The regulator’s latest inspection gave Curo top marks for governance and consumer standards — G1 and C1 — proof that Victor’s leadership wasn’t just reputation, it was performance.

So when a chief executive with that kind of record takes up a “Chief Customer Officer” role at a landlord recently downgraded for governance and consumer failings, you have to wonder: is this really about customer experience, or is he being brought in to prepare for the top job?

To be fair, Patrick Franco didn’t walk into an easy role. When Notting Hill and Genesis merged in 2018, it was supposed to create a powerhouse for affordable housing in London. Instead, it created a sprawling organisation with deep structural problems. The merger was messy from the start — incompatible systems, different organisational cultures, and years of deferred maintenance on older London stock that’s now literally falling apart.

Franco inherited that mess in early 2023. His background — a long career in corporate operations, including senior posts at Foxtons, Credit Suisse, and Second Home — gave him experience in managing complex businesses, but not necessarily in the realities of social housing. He’s intelligent and organised, but it’s hard to argue he was fully equipped for the task. Few people would have been.

He’s also facing the added weight of history. The previous CEO, Kate Davies, stayed in post for 18 years, through good times and bad. That longevity left behind a legacy of both stability and complacency — the kind of institutional inertia that takes years to undo.

So while the recent governance downgrade sits under Franco’s watch, it’s important to remember that much of what’s now being exposed was baked in long before he arrived. The regulator may be holding him responsible, but the rot set in years ago.

Bringing in Victor da Cunha, then, looks like an attempt by the board to steady the ship — but it also hints at a possible future handover. This is how it usually starts: a quiet appointment, a few headlines about “improving customer focus,” and then a change at the top once the groundwork is done.

When Downgrades Become Routine

There was a time when a regulatory downgrade sent shockwaves through a housing association. It was an embarrassment — a public warning that things weren’t right. But lately, downgrades seem to have lost their sting. They’ve become almost routine, a kind of sector-wide shrug.

Notting Hill Genesis isn’t alone. GreenSquareAccord, Clarion, L&Q, and dozens of others have faced similar verdicts. The language is always the same: “We accept the regulator’s findings,” “We have a plan in place,” “We’re listening and learning.” Yet, somehow, the same associations end up back in the same position a year or two later.

When GreenSquareAccord was downgraded, it was because of basic failings — missing safety certificates, poor record-keeping, governance gaps.

Notting Hill Genesis was hit for much the same reasons: overdue fire-safety actions, incomplete building data, a lack of assurance that homes were safe. The regulator’s downgrade to G3 for governance and C3 for consumer standards wasn’t about minor paperwork errors — it was about health and safety oversight collapsing under the weight of poor data and slow governance.

These aren’t isolated lapses; they’re symptoms of a culture where senior management are allowed to recycle the same excuses until the news cycle moves on.

And then there’s Sophie Atkinson — the Executive Director of Governance at GreenSquareAccord. Speaking at the Bevan Brittain Housing Company Secretaries Update event in February 2025, she described the new regulatory regime causing “a tsunami of additional work.” She went on to suggest that the 72 deaths at Grenfell — and the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak — were “not helpful” in terms of regaining GreenSquareAccord’s governance rating.

Just think about that for a moment. A senior governance figure openly admitting that stronger safety standards are “unachievable,” and that the country’s worst housing tragedies are an inconvenience to their grading. If that’s not a window into the culture that drives these failures, I don’t know what is.

Her words also hinted at something the sector won’t say out loud: many housing associations have simply grown too big to manage their own portfolios. They’ve merged, consolidated, and expanded so aggressively that they can no longer keep up with basic safety compliance. The “tsunami” Atkinson described isn’t the regulator’s doing — it’s the self-inflicted result of empire-building.

Because every one of these mergers follows the same pattern: two struggling housing associations combine for financial convenience; they talk about efficiency, scale, and resilience; and then they spend the next five years discovering missing gas certificates, unsafe electrics, and incompatible systems. Boards clash, one CEO goes, another takes over, and residents are left in the chaos.

That’s what happened with GreenSquare and Accord. It’s what happened with Notting Hill and Genesis. And it will keep happening until someone admits that these mega-mergers — built on promises of efficiency — have actually created a layer of bureaucratic paralysis where accountability goes to die.

Downgrades should be a wake-up call, not a press opportunity. If an organisation’s leadership can’t demonstrate improvement after years of intervention, then surely the issue isn’t the process — it’s the scale, the structure, and the people still clinging on to the same old excuses.

The Long Goodbye

For me, growing up in the eighties, Bob Hoskins as Harold Shand in The Long Good Friday was unforgettable — a mob boss watching his empire crumble through something he never saw coming. A deal gone wrong with the IRA, enemies closing in, and a man still talking about progress while the world around him burns. We all know how that ends.

The Long Good Friday is could be considered a film about denial — about holding on to an empire for as long as possible without recognising that the game has changed. And that, in many ways, is where we find so many housing association CEOs today. They’re clinging to the idea that everything is still under control, that another “transformation plan” or “listening exercise” will fix what’s gone wrong. But beneath them, the ground has already shifted.

The question we should be asking isn’t just how long have they been in post, but how long do they get to stay once it’s clear they’ve lost control of the narrative? Because make no mistake — this is about narrative as much as it is about numbers. It’s about reputations being protected while homes fall apart.

We’ve seen this play out time and time again. Back in 2021, GreenSquare’s then-CEO, Howard Toplis, was forced to step aside after the Regulator of Social Housing found that the association had failed to carry out critical safety work. Fire-risk actions had been left outstanding for months, gas safety certificates were overdue, and lifts in several blocks hadn’t been serviced on time — issues that still plague many of us to this very day.

The regulator said tenants — including vulnerable residents — had been exposed to an increased risk of danger over a significant period. The regulator’s notice at the time was damning — GreenSquare had “failed to implement a large number of high-priority actions arising from fire-risk assessments,” leaving tenants exposed to serious risk.

Ruth Cooke was brought in as interim chief executive to steady the ship and oversee the merger between GreenSquare and Accord. The board issued the usual statements about “fundamental change” and “renewed focus on compliance.” They apologised, promised new systems, and assured the regulator that lessons had been learned. Sound familiar?

That moment — Howard Toplis’s quiet exit and Cooke’s arrival — is a reminder that these crises don’t come out of nowhere. They build slowly, over years of warning signs ignored or downplayed. And when the reckoning finally arrives, the board doesn’t act out of foresight; it acts because it has no other choice.

After stepping down from GreenSquare, Howard Toplis resurfaced in Wales as chief executive of Tai Calon Community Housing. On the surface, it was presented as a positive move — a steady hand joining a smaller, community-focused landlord during the pandemic. And to his credit, Tai Calon did plenty of good work during that period, from welfare calls and food deliveries to mental health support for staff. But the timing and tone of his appointment made it clear what had really happened: he’d fallen on the sword for GreenSquare and, rather than being held accountable, was rewarded with a comfortable post that saw him through to retirement. This is the game.

Across the sector, CEOs stay in post for ten, fifteen, even twenty years. They move from one organisation to another, often carrying the same culture with them. Each time, they inherit “legacy problems,” promise a new start, and then quietly repeat the same mistakes. When the regulator steps in, they apologise, restructure, and rebrand — but rarely does anyone actually leave. The same names keep resurfacing, promoted sideways or upwards, while residents are told that “lessons have been learned.”

And for boards, longevity becomes a comfort blanket. A familiar leader looks stable on paper. A change at the top looks risky. But in reality, keeping the same person in charge year after year is what creates the risk. It breeds complacency, detachment, and denial. The longer someone sits in that chair, the more they start to believe their own messaging.

When a CEO has been in post long enough to write the same apology twice, it’s time to go.

At some point, boards have to stop rewarding survival and start demanding results. Because from where residents are sitting, “steady leadership” has become code for “nothing’s changing.”

If The Long Good Friday taught us anything, it’s that power without awareness always ends the same way — in the back of a car surrounded by the consequences.

The Leadership Loop

If there’s one thing the housing sector does well, it’s looking after its own. When leaders move on, they rarely move out — they just change chairs. The same names circle the same tables, taking turns on boards, panels, and committees. It’s an ecosystem built on recognition and reputation, where even failure doesn’t seem to close doors.

Ruth Cooke and Victor da Cunha are prime examples. Both sit on the National Housing Federation’s board — the very body that claims to set the standards for governance, accountability, and best practice across the sector. On paper, it’s a good fit. Victor’s record at Curo is solid, and he’s widely respected. He’s earned his place at that table. But Ruth’s inclusion is harder to justify. Her short and troubled tenure at Clarion, followed by years of mixed results at GreenSquareAccord, doesn’t exactly align with the Federation’s mission to showcase excellence.

It raises an uncomfortable question: how can an organisation tasked with upholding governance credibility continue to promote and platform individuals who lead associations repeatedly downgraded for governance failings? What message does that send to residents living with the consequences of those failings?

This is the leadership loop — where accountability bends back on itself. When the same people oversee the same problems from one board to another, “learning lessons” becomes a slogan rather than a practice. It’s a sector built on familiarity and favour, not fresh ideas or resident perspective. And that’s precisely why nothing ever really changes.

Until there’s genuine rotation at the top — not just reassignments within the club — governance reform will always stop short. Because how can you change the culture of housing when the same people keep running the show?

So, is it tough at the top?

Maybe the real question is this: are people like Victor da Cunha as rare as ants’ teeth? A CEO who, while not perfect, has at least steered a steady and transparent ship. Reliable, grounded, and capable of facing the regulator without hiding behind the usual excuses. Because for every Victor, there seems to be another Ruth — financially astute, sure, but leading from the balance sheet rather than the front line.

And that’s part of the wider problem. Increasingly, housing associations are being led by former finance directors — people who understand spreadsheets better than social purpose. It makes sense in theory: tough financial times call for financial minds. But the result is a generation of leaders who can balance a budget while the homes beneath that budget literally crumble.

We’ve already seen it across the sector — CEOs with accounting backgrounds taking the top job because they can keep the lenders happy, not because they can keep residents safe. The sector has quietly shifted from leadership by vision to leadership by calculation. And it shows.

So maybe the issue isn’t just one of accountability — maybe it’s supply. Maybe there simply aren’t enough capable leaders left to go around. After years of mergers, restructures, and failed “transformation programmes,” the talent pool has thinned. The good ones, like Victor, move on or burn out. The rest are recycled — rewarded for failure with speaking slots, board seats, or industry roles that keep them inside the loop.

Just look at Kate Davies, who led Notting Hill Genesis for nearly two decades. When she stepped down, she didn’t fade quietly into the background. She moved into the consultancy circuit — another “expert” on governance and best practice. And in a way, that’s the perfect metaphor for the housing sector’s culture of reward. Stay long enough, survive the fallout, and there’s always a soft landing waiting.

That’s how the sector protects its own: fail upwards, rebrand as an adviser, and reappear at the next conference explaining how things should be done differently. It’s a strange kind of reward structure — one where mismanagement becomes experience, and experience becomes currency.

And it’s not just housing executives who benefit from the revolving door. Take Eddie Hughes MP, for example — once Minister for Rough Sleeping and Housing, now fronting a housing-think tank and advising the sector on “best practice”. His shift from policymaker to consultant-influencer shows how the safety net isn’t limited to CEOs. Boards, events and industry panels become the landing zones for those whose leadership records should have been questioned, not rewarded.

But maybe that’s the biggest shortage of all: not the bricklayers, not the electricians, not even the housing stock. The real shortage is leadership — genuine, accountable leadership that understands what it’s like to live with the consequences of poor decision-making. Until that changes, the sector will keep making the same mistakes, just under different names.

And of course, these CEOs aren’t just protected by internal mechanisms or loyal boards — they’re shielded by the very people who should be holding them to account. Across the sector, too many stay silent because they’re waiting for their Purchase Orders to be signed off, careful not to upset the hand that feeds them. The result is a culture of quiet compliance, where genuine accountability is stifled by financial dependence. Thousands are desperate to secure their next contract or renewal from the same boards and executives they should be challenging. And that silence is what keeps the system turning.

So maybe it isn’t so tough at the top after all. The soft landings, the board seats, the advisory gigs, the event circuits, the consultancy work — they all make the fall a little easier. What’s fundamentally true is that it’s tough for a resident. It’s tough living in a damp, unsafe home. It’s tough trying to sleep knowing your home isn’t fire safe. And it’s tough for the thousands already decanted from their homes because they were never safe to begin with. So, do you still think it’s tough at the top?

We reached out to a number of those mentioned in this piece for comment. Victor da Cunha kindly responded to share some personal context behind his move from Curo to Notting Hill Genesis, highlighting that the decision was as much about family as career.

“After more than a decade leading Curo, this change was driven by personal priorities. With my family based in east London and two young grandchildren, I wanted to be closer to home and more involved in their lives. Returning to the capital and taking on the Chief Customer Officer role at NHG feels like the right next step — both professionally and personally.”

I’d like to thank Victor for taking the time to respond and to wish him the very best with the next chapter at Notting Hill Genesis. His experience, approach, and proven track record at Curo will no doubt bring real value to the organisation as it works to rebuild confidence and strengthen its relationship with residents.