What we do

Geoff has been Chief Executive and Head of Paid Service for Brighton & Hove City Council Executive since 2015. He began his career with Brighton & Hove City Council in 2010 as Director of Environment, Development & Housing accountable for the commissioning and delivery of Housing, Regeneration, Planning & Building Control, Transport, Waste Management & Parks services.

Previously Geoff worked for the Mayor for London as Director of Design, Strategy & Planning at the London Development Agency.  Before then he worked for the Housing Corporation as Assistant Director of Investment and National Housing Investment Programme Manager.  This followed a spell at HM Treasury supporting the work of the Treasury Management Board.

As Director of Environmental Policy and Performance at London Borough of Brent, Geoff commissioned environmental services and led the Wembley Stadium regeneration project.  He is a professional town planner and commenced his professional career at Surrey County Council.

Ceri started her career in local government where she qualified as a CIPFA accountant. She then spent over 20 years in corporate and investment banking with BNP Paribas, Bank of Scotland and Lloyds. She specialised in project finance, equity investments and securitisation, and worked across a number of sectors including infrastructure, housing and energy for both private and public sector clients. She then spent over six years at Laing O’Rourke leading the investment and treasury functions. She sits on the HCA Social Housing Regulator Committee, is a board member of Red Funnel and a member of the Investment Committee for a private equity Infrastructure Fund.

Nabeel was appointed to the Board of Be First in July 2022 and brings 15 years experience of working with senior policy makers and politicians across a range of economic development and regeneration projects in the public sector. He currently heads up the economy and culture division at London Borough of Lambeth, where his remit covers place-shaping, inward investment & business support, cultural programming and supporting residents into good work.

He used to work for the Mayor of London where he was responsible for delivering the Mayor’s Economic Development Strategy and has worked on major regeneration projects at various stages in their development cycle, ranging from negotiating commercial development agreements to help unlock key regeneration sites for new housing estates and schools to working on the land assembly of a £1bn mixed-use shopping centre redevelopment scheme.

He is also a Board Director at Homes for Lambeth, a Registered Provider and not-for-profit company which builds, sells and manages private, intermediate and genuinely affordable homes in Lambeth.

Gabrielle’s banking career spans over thirty-five years specialising in real estate, social housing, and local authority debt. Her most recent full-time role was as Director of Loans at Homes England (September 2019 – April 2021) where she led a team of 65 deploying government funding to support residential development in England.

Gabrielle’s previous roles include Director of Real Estate at Metro Bank PLC and Head of Real Estate at Lloyds Banking Group.

Gabrielle is a Governor of Sheffield Hallam University, a board member for Habitare Homes, Be First Regeneration Limited, and HomeNow. Gabrielle is a Special Advisor to Alpha Real Capital LLP. She has held previous board and committee member roles for Greensquare Accord, Midland Heart Housing Association and Metropolitan Housing Trust.

Gabrielle has a BSc(hons) in Accounting and Financial Analysis from the University of Warwick, and qualified as an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (Financial Stream), now known as the Chartered Governance Institute.

Cathy joined the Board in September 2023. She has a long history of regeneration and housing policy as a civil servant, including working on social exclusion and neighbourhood renewal from 2000.  Since then, Cathy has worked on a series of social and economic policies including transport and exclusion, youth crime, local economic growth and from 2019 as DLUHC Director, Places, Housing Delivery and Infrastructure.

Prior to her current post Cathy worked in healthcare, leading a technology transformation programme in NHS England.  In 2013 Cathy undertook a secondment to Barclays Bank PLC where she led a digital transformation programme.

She is passionate about regeneration and the opportunities to transform lives and build communities where families can thrive and where the public, community and private sector come together to build great places for people to live, work and spend their leisure time.