Hannah Harvey, Chief Operating Officer at Saffron Housing Trust

In this episode, we sat down with Hannah Harvey, Chief Operating Officer at Saffron Housing Trust. Hannah has progressed within the housing sector quickly. She’s worked in housing for around 12 years, spending her earlier career working in the police force and in children’s services. We asked Hannah how she progressed in housing so quickly.

Hannah shared with us an abundance of insightful and actionable advice for anyone looking to become a leader in the sector. She spoke about the importance of being authentic, trustworthy, showing vulnerability and picking the right organisation for you.

Wellbeing is also important to Hannah, and she shared with us how she promotes a healthy mindset with her team to ensure that they’re looking after themselves. On top of being COO and a mum, Hannah is also currently campaigning for a Vice President position at CIH. We spoke about what kind of impact she is hoping to have in this position. Hannah has also dealt with prejudice and inequality throughout her career and we spoke about the importance of consistent support for minority groups.

Towards the end of our chat, we spoke about the cost of living crisis and how it affects us all.

Other topics we covered were:

• What prompted Hannah to make the move from police to housing
• Hannah’s unconventional working day plan
• How can you deal with parent guilt?
• How do we ensure that personal pursuits aren’t the first to go in busy times?
• Unconscious bias and how to deal with it
• The importance of being brave and opening up the debate when it comes to diversity and inclusion
• What did we learn from the pandemic that can help us through the cost of living crisis?

Don’t miss this fascinating conversation that taps into Hannah’s passion for a variety of topics.