Senior Leadership Team

Head of Casework Excellence and Development

Mark Smart

Mark joined the Housing Ombudsman Service as Head of Dispute Resolution in November 2022, after many successful years at the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO). Mark made a significant contribution to the Ombudsman sector through his pioneering work on peer reviews, supporting complaint handling schemes to make efficiencies and achieve excellence, and in chairing a cross-Ombudsman group on implementing, benchmarking and reporting against the Ombudsman Association’s Service Standard Framework.

Mark became Head of Casework Excellence and Development in May 2024, providing senior leadership to the reviews and casework guidance, knowledge and development functions. He also leads our work on joint investigations with the LGSCO, which aims to extend fairness where complaints span both areas of jurisdiction. Mark has experience of driving improvements in quality, proportionate and effective decision making, streamlining processes and leading high performing teams.

Head of Communications & Stakeholder Engagement

Helen Tobias

Helen joined the Housing Ombudsman Service as Head of Communications and Stakeholder Engagement in January 2025.  A communications leader and professional with over 20 years’ experience in both internally and externally facing senior strategic, stakeholder management and communications positions in the public, private, defence, infrastructure, and transport sectors.

Prior to joining the Housing Ombudsman Service, Helen was Associate Director and Engagement Leader for ARUP. Leading communications and stakeholder engagement planning, delivery, and activity for a range of clients on diverse projects including implementation of the Building Safety Act (2022). She has also led consultation analysis and reporting activity on nationally significant infrastructure projects going through the planning process.

Helen has previously led communications and stakeholder engagement teams and activity in large and complex matrix organisations such as Defence, Equipment & Support (DE&S) MoD and Highways England (now National Highways).

Head of Digital, Data and Technology (Acting up)

Lehan Fielding

Lehan joined the Housing Ombudsman Service in 2022 as a Data Protection Advisor and has worked in a variety of roles within the Service in the digital and data arena being made Head of Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) in April 2025.

The DDaT is a new Service which encompasses the IT Team (consisting of our Support Helpdesk, systems administration and Cyber Security responsibilities), the Information Governance Casework Team (facilitating Data subjects rights and Freedom of Information requests and having responsibility for records management) and the Information Governance Compliance Team (responsible for GDPR and Data Protection compliance). Lehan is the operational Senior Information Risk Owner (SIRO).

The DDaT Service is focused on enhancing service performance through the smart use of technology and data. We champion innovation while ensuring systems remain secure, reliable and user focussed. We are passionate about improving our service by using technology and harnessing data effectively. We are committed to fostering a culture of continuous improvement, collaboration and digital inclusion.

Lehan is an experienced information management professional with a strong background in creating and maintaining information governance frameworks in a public authority setting. Lehan has over 20 years’ experience creating and maintaining data privacy and information management frameworks in the public sector including the police service. Lehan has worked at all levels of data protection and is a strong data protection practitioner and strategist.

Head of Dispute Support

Suzanne Foreman

Suzanne joined the Housing Ombudsman as Head of Dispute Support in October 2022. Her career in Housing has spanned over 20 years, with the last 15 of these  working at a large housing association where she successfully centralised the housing management enquiries service. Prior to this she worked in specialist roles delivering income, estate management and antisocial behaviour services with a key focus on service improvement and operational policy development. She is passionate about the customer journey and delivering excellent services.

Suzanne is a Corporate Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing and member of the Institute of Leadership and Management. Suzanne uses her skills, knowledge and experience to build effective high performing teams to deliver excellent services. Outside of work Suzanne volunteers in her local community, currently holding the position of Treasurer for a community-based charity.

Head of Duty to Monitor

Verity Richards

Verity Richards joined the Housing Ombudsman as the Head of Dispute Support in March 2021 after spending over 12 years working at a large, national housing association in various roles. She is a Member of the Chartered Management Institute and the Chartered Institute of Housing and uses her skills and experience to ensure that we intervene fairly where there is evidence of delays in complaint handling by member landlords.

Since joining the Housing Ombudsman, Verity has overseen the expansion of our Dispute Support teams, developed our Customer Charter, refined our approach to managing unacceptable behaviours and delivered operational changes to case handling following changes set out in the Building Safety Act. Verity is the operational lead for the interactive online portal, having been involved in its design, development and trial prior to roll out in 2023.

Her current focus is leading operational change in response to the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 20203 to ensure that landlords comply with the statutory Complaint Handing Code and that a strategic, intelligence-led approach is embedded in the Dispute Support function.

Head of Finance & Procurement

Ayo Odufuwa

Ayo joined the Housing Ombudsman Service in February 2023.

Ayo has over 20 years’ experience within the private and public sector with adept experience of setting up and supporting ‘local authority trading companies’ across housing, adult social care, and the education services. Having sat on every seat within the modern finance functions; she brings on significant knowledge and experience in financial and budget management, financial reporting, and financial forecasting to enable executive decision making.

Ayo has been a part of decision making and influencing board committee over the last few years and has successfully led various initiatives and projects improving efficiencies, increasing profitable margins, and enabling sustained business growth with the trading companies within local government.

Head of Insight and Development (Acting up)

Sarah Patten

Sarah joined the Housing Ombudsman Service in April 2024 as an Insight and Systemic Manager, within the Quality, Engagement and Development department. In this role, she provided direction and leadership for systemic and thematic investigations into the wider issues driving complaints to provide insight and recommendations to improve the sector.

While relatively new to the social housing sector, she has worked in regulatory bodies in a range of roles from leading investigation teams, to preparing policy and guidance and delivering operational improvement programmes.

Sarah has extensive experience leading organisational change, both to improve operational effectiveness and for efficiency gains, with change management and Lean 6 Sigma qualifications.

Head of People (Acting up)

Kristie Blinston

Head of Transformation (Digital, Data and Technology)

Michelle du Bock

Michelle joined the Housing Ombudsman Service in July 2021 having worked 27 years in local government across a range of services, with her last role working as a Senior Manager for Complaints and Information Governance across a large borough council. Initially joining us as Governance and Assurance Manager, Michelle is now the Head of Corporate and Information Governance and operational Senior Information Risk Owner (SIRO), leading the Digital and Data team, Performance and Business Information team, and Corporate Governance and Executive Support functions.

Head of Transformation (Organisational Design and Workforce Development)

Tracey Hindley

Tracey was appointed to the role of Head of Human Resources in July 2018. She has extensive generalist experience at an executive level and is CIPD qualified. Tracey has a background of working in the not for profit sector including housing and care. Tracey has 15 years’ experience in human resources roles and has proven operational and strategic skills.