Our Board in Scotland

Tom Norris, Managing Director

Tom is our Managing Director. Originally from Kinross-shire he has a background in both public and private sectors with a passion and a track record of delivering world class customer experience.

This has included delivering train services for the 2012 London Olympic Games and leading Edinburgh Trams into operational service between 2012-2015. Latterly he held positions with Abellio and Serco PLC before moving into the affordable housing sector.

He joined Places for People in 2019 as our Group Director of Business Practice and has been leading on the transformation of our affordable housing businesses across the UK.

Debi Marriott-Lavery

Debi has been in her role as Group Executive Director of Affordable Housing at Places for People since July 2019 and has been with Places for People since 2015. Prior to housing, Debi spent a decade in health and social care as a qualified healthcare professional. Debi has held a number of senior management roles since joining Places for People and soon became Chief Executive of Places for People Living Plus; focusing on providing all round accommodation, care and support to help vulnerable people with complex needs live independent fulfilling lives.

Debi now has over 20 years’ experience working at a senior level in the Health, Social Care and Housing markets, strategically leading teams and businesses to provide innovative high-quality services in diverse and challenging markets for both public, independent and not for profit sectors. Debi’s former roles include that of Managing Director Community Services, Care UK and Chief Operating Officer at Anchor Trust.

Andrew Winstanley

Andrew is the Group Executive Director - Finance, at Places for People and was appointed to the board in August 2017. He also serves in the same capacity for Places for People Scotland. 

 

Graham Waddell

Graham worked for Nationwide Building Society over a period of 32 years during which he held a number of Senior Executive positions in a range of disciplines including Retail Banking, Marketing, Customer Experience, Risk and Strategy development. His professional qualification is FCIB. He was also the Managing Director of a Nationwide subsidiary company, which was a large private landlord and property owning vehicle. His experiences include developing retailing strategies and negotiation of very large contracts. Graham is keen to utilise his experiences to improve the efficiency, risk profile and customer experience within Places for People Scotland. Graham joined our board in September 2013.

Janet Hamblin

Janet joined the board in April 2018 and took up the position of Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee in May 2018. Janet has a wealth of experience in advising and auditing charities, social housing and education sector clients and heads up the dedicated not for profit team in Scotland. She has over 25 years' experience in her field.

Janet joined RSM in 1996 and specialises in audit and advisory services for charities, RSLs and OMBs. She also has experience in social impact, risk management, corporate governance and strategic planning. She carries out training for boards and audit committees and regularly chairs and speaks at social housing and charity conferences. She is a non-executive board member of Scottish Government recently becoming Chair of the Scottish Government Audit and Risk Committee. She is also a member of the Education Board of the Merchant Company of Edinburgh and a Member of the ICAS Public Sector Committee.

Janet trained and qualified with PWC where she worked in their SME Audit and Business Advisory Group for 14 years and also first started to specialise in the not for profit sector.

Pamela Scott

Pamela joined the board in May 2017 and appointed to the position of Senior Independent Director in 2019. Pamela spent the majority of her career as an Executive leader in global spirits company Diageo. Roles included in Diageo were leading a Scotch bottling manufacturing site, leading technical for Guinness in Ireland, leading HR for Supply in Europe and delivering global supply chain transformation programmes. Since taking early retirement in 2020 Pamela has a number of non-executive positions and has set up a successful Management Consultancy called Pax & Iris Ltd where she supports both global and local organisations with performance improvement.  She has a strong commercial background and significant experience of leading and delivering performance improvement,  Human Resources and supply chain management and Pamela brings significant leadership experience to the Board.

Tavish Scott

Tavish joined the board in November 2019. He is Head of External Affairs at Scottish Rugby. He was a Member of the Scottish Parliament for Shetland from 1999-2019, held various ministerial posts including Minister for Transport between 2001 and 2007 and has extensive Parliamentary experience. He was leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats between 2008-11. He is a board director of Shetland Space Centre Ltd.

Moira Sibbald

Moira joined the board in February 2021 and is looking to bring her broad experience in different sectors to support the organisation’s aims.

She is a solicitor and was formerly the Group General Counsel and Company Secretary and a member of the Executive Board of CALA Group after working in private legal practice and as an Executive Board member of a building society.

Moira has held a number of non-executive positions within the arts sector, financial services and other housing associations in Scotland and has experience chairing divisions of those organisations as well as being the chair of an Audit Committee and a Remuneration and Governance Committee.

Her other current position is as a Governor and Trustee at the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy where she chairs the Public Protection Committee and has recently been appointed to the Remuneration and Governance Committee.