30 January 2024
Summary: MTVH announces that Chief Executive, Geeta Nanda, OBE, has informed the MTVH Board of her intention to step down from her role in the Autumn of 2024 and once a replacement is in post.
After sixteen years as CEO of MTVH, or its preceding organisations, Geeta has decided the time is right to step back from a full-time executive role to spend more time caring for her mother who turns 91 this year.
MTVH’s Chair, Althea Efunshile, CBE, is leading the search and selection process for the new CEO, supported by other Board members, and has appointed executive search specialists Odgers Berndston to assist. Geeta will remain in post as CEO to deliver on MTVH’s strategy and plans and assist in a smooth handover to her successor.
Geeta Nanda, OBE, said: “When you have the privilege to lead an incredible organisation like MTVH for 16 years it can be hard to find the right moment to step away, but I know this is the right time for several reasons.
First, we have bounced back from the pandemic, with an improved credit outlook, the ability to deliver more opportunities for our residents, and the strongest governance rating.
Second, there is a real continuity, strength, and depth in our Chair, Board and senior team, colleagues, and involved customers who will carry on MTVH’s mission to give everyone a decent home and the chance to live well. Finally, this is also the right time for me personally as my mum turns 91 this year and I want to spend more time caring for her.
I entered the affordable housing sector as a Housing Officer 35 years ago to give more people the security of a decent home and the opportunities that come with that. I’m grateful that MTVH has given me the opportunity to fulfil that purpose and proud that we have enhanced resident experience, created great places to live, and met the challenges faced by communities by supporting people to live well. With our great team here we have also completed, or progressed over 15,000, new homes in the past 16 years.”
Althea Efunshile, CBE, said: “The Board and I would like to thank Geeta for her huge contribution both to MTVH and the housing sector in the UK. Geeta leaves MTVH in great shape as one of the most innovative and resilient housing associations in the country with high Governance and Financial Viability Standard ratings from the Regulator, and with a recently improved credit outlook from Standard & Poors (S&P).
Our strong position and reputation have seen MTVH become a key partner in some of the largest long-term regeneration and development schemes that are tackling the UK’s housing crisis. For example, Clapham Park in London that will deliver 2400 new homes over the next 12 years.
We are now focused on the appointment of a new CEO who will continue this track record of success while maintaining MTVH’s values as a social purpose organisation which was established to house Windrush migrants and exists to ‘serve people better every day’.”
Biography Geeta Nanda, OBE
Geeta is Chief Executive of MTVH. Across a career of over 35 years, she has held a variety of leadership positions in the housing sector.
Geeta was Chief Executive of Thames Valley Housing for nine years, and then Chief Executive of Metropolitan from October 2017, before the two organisations merged in 2018. She also established the highly successful market rent subsidiary, Fizzy Living, in 2012.
Geeta has served on the boards of a number of other housing organisations and the National Housing Federation and is the former Chair of the G15 group of London’s largest housing associations, which collectively provides homes to one in ten Londoners and builds a quarter of the capital’s new homes.
Geeta is a non-Executive member of PRS REIT plc. She also serves on the government’s Older People’s Housing Taskforce and the Advisory Board for Homewards, the Prince of Wales’ Homelessness initiative. Geeta is also an ambassador for the charity World Child Cancer.
In 2013, Geeta was awarded an OBE for achievements in social housing, and in 2021 received the ‘Outstanding Individual’ award at the EG Awards in recognition of her achievements and position as a ‘role model’ within the sector.