Our Directors
Get to know who's who across Curo's leadership team... from this page you can connect with our directors on LinkedIn and Twitter and read their blogs.
Our Executive Team
Victor da Cunha - Chief Executive
Vic joined the organisation as Chief Executive in 2011. His initial focus was on integrating three housing associations into one organisation with a clear customer service ethos. From these foundations, Curo was formed as a re-energised, social purpose driven housing association and housebuilder.
Today Curo has grown the numbers of homes in management by around 2,000, it has trebled its turnover, increased resident engagement and satisfaction and has around 2,100 homes in its development pipeline. It is also an Investors In People ‘Gold' employer, has been ranked in the Best Companies Top 25 housing associations to work for, and has won many awards for the services, new homes and regeneration activities it undertakes.
Vic is Chair of Local Space Housing Association, which provides high quality temporary housing for homeless families in East London and chairs the National Housing Federation's National Diversity, Equalities & Inclusion Group.
Email Victor | Read Victor's blog
Julie Evans - Chief Property Officer
Julie is a career housing professional with nearly 40 years’ experience in both English and Welsh housing sectors, starting her career as a trainee housing manager with Newport Borough Council in 1988. She brings a proven track record of success in operational, strategic and transformational leadership roles, in addition to seven years’ experience of strategic direction-setting and change implementation as a non-executive director of Bristol community housing provider, United Communities.
During her tenure, Julie has represented Curo on a number of strategic bodies in Bristol and Bath & North-East Somerset, and has spoken at sector conferences.
Julie is Curo’s Health and Safety and Business Continuity Compliance Lead and a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing.
Away from housing, Julie is an avid supporter of Welsh rugby and Liverpool FC and enjoys walking her labradoodle, Gracie.
Email Julie | Read Julie's blog
Simon Gibbs - Chief Finance Officer
Simon brings a wealth of commercial experience to Curo. He began his career as a chartered accountant with Deloitte, before joining Rothschild where he spent five years in the UK and in Singapore. He went on to become Chief Executive of Gieves Group plc where he led the demerger and flotation of the media group, Chivers Communications plc, followed by the sale of the company to BBC Worldwide.
He was commissioned to create a new digital video business for the BBC and became Managing Director of BBC Motion Gallery before joining T3 Media Inc in the USA to create an online international video licensing operation.
Simon joined Curo in November 2013 and has since led Curo’s fund-raising activities and business transformation programme resulting in substantial improvements in performance. He has also been heavily involved in establishing Curo’s commercial house-builder business.
Katy Gullon - Chief Governance Officer
Katy joined Curo in 2018 as Director of Governance, having previously worked in the commercial and higher education sectors. She qualified as a solicitor in 2008, specialising in corporate and human rights law, and uses her legal and commercial experience to support Curo’s strategy and governance.
Katy leads our strategy, governance, health & safety, performance & insight and risk & assurance functions. She’s passionate about inclusion and social mobility.
She also sits on the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee of the Bristol Zoological Society.
Paul Harris - Chief Customer Officer
Paul joined Curo in 2017 from Acorn Group, an African property management company where he was VP Corporate Affairs. Prior to that he spent five years as Group Director Customer Experience at Unite Students Group where he implemented a highly successful customer digital programme. This was preceded by roles at the South West Regional Development Agency, Laing O’Rourke Group and Royal Mail.
Paul is the senior person accountable for Curo’s complaints handling, for the purposes of the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaints Handling Code. He also has responsibility for Curo’s compliance with the Consumer Standards.
Jane Smith - Chief People Officer
During a 30-year career in HR, Jane has worked in Executive roles in a number of large customer-centric organisations, where she’s led the People function in developing colleagues and culture; these include roles at Tesco, BT, Mothercare, Whitbread and Marks & Spencer.
Our Service Directors
Simon Collins - Construction Director
Simon's teams manage the construction process of new Curo homes, making sure our homes are built safely and to a high standard, and meet building regulations, planning conditions, the requirement of our funders/lenders and all our landlord responsibilities.
Rebecca FitzGerald - Director of Communications
Get in touch with Rebecca with any media enquiries or questions about our website, social media, planning consultations, or any other communications matters.
Lesley Hodges - Director of Customer Contact
Get in touch with Lesley about the many ways customers can reach us. Curo's Customer Contact team, open from 8-8 Monday to Friday, is the first point of contact for all customers and aims to answer most customer enquiries right away.
Lisa Howells - Director of Sales
Get in touch with Lisa for sales and marketing enquiries about all home and asset sales.
Sarah Lavis - Director of Human Resources
Get in touch with Sarah about Human Resources best practices, employee experience, talent acquisition, and HR technology systems. Sarah plays a vital role in helping us to evolve and improve our HR services and realise our Purposeful Culture strategic objective.
Sarah Maylor - Development Director, Curo Places & Curo Enterprise
Get in touch with Sarah about our commercial development schemes and affordable housing programme, including land-buying, planning, design and Section 106 opportunities.
Luke McCreery - Director of Property Maintenance and Building Safety
Responsible for the delivery of annual Home Safety Checks for all properties and delivery of planned works, including gas and electric heating, kitchens and bathrooms across Bath and the surrounding area.
Ian McLeod - Finance Director Curo Enterprise, Director of Treasury
Get in touch with Ian about treasury, financial planning, insurance and development finance.
Carl McMurtry - Director of Estates Services
Contact Carl to talk about any aspects of Curo’s estates services, including cleaning and grounds maintenance. Carl's teams work with our communities to ensure our neighbourhoods and well-kept, clean and tidy.
Emma Smith - Director of Accounts and Lettings
Our Customer Accounts team collects Curo’s rental income and helps customers to sustain successful tenancies through friendly and expert money advice and support. Our Lettings team manages the lettings process for our properties, preparing homes to be re-let and successfully letting to new tenants, ensuring the right tenant has the right home at the right time.
Ian Sheppard - Director of Financial Services
Responsible for financial reporting and analysis, performance management, rent and service charge setting, and co-ordinating payments to colleagues and suppliers.
Stuart Smith - Technical and Commercial Director
Stuart is involved in the property development process from the land buying stage through
to construction. His teams are responsible for securing detailed planning consent for all our new sites.
Andrew Snee - Director of Tenancy Compliance and Management
Our Tenancy Compliance team works to safeguard children and vulnerable adults and ensure all our customers can feel safe and well in their homes. Tenancy Management helps customers get their tenancies off to a great start and provides continuing support.
Email Andrew | Read Andrew's blog
Matt Steele - Director of Asset Management and Procurement
Get in touch with Matt about anything related to asset management (how we look after, improve and invest in our existing homes) and the procurement of goods, services and works.
