We are a Registered Provider of Social Housing with 28,500 homes in Sunderland and over 1000 colleagues. We are a charitable organisation with a core purpose of providing safe and decent homes for our customers of today and tomorrow. We care about people and are passionate about providing a great service to our customers and colleagues. 

We are nothing without our amazing colleagues who provide a service to the 60,000 people in the City of Sunderland who live in our homes. Together we commit to putting our customers at the heart of business decision making and to create better working lives for everyone at Gentoo. 

We are committed to delivering our social purpose with a commercial mindset, ensuring our services are delivered in the most effective and efficient way, always with empathy, great customer service, excellent communications, high standards of quality and value for money. We put our customers and colleagues at the heart of everything we do. 

Our success relies on the skills, creativity, and behaviours of our colleagues. The majority of our colleagues work directly with our customers in front line roles but everyone at Gentoo works hard to makes a difference to our customers’ lives, every single day. Our colleagues are special people. We need to value, reward and recognise them and to invest in them, developing talent at all levels of the organisation, for the future. 

It is important that colleagues can be themselves at work so that they can be the best they can be every day. 

This is a new era for Gentoo. We have just refreshed our Corporate Strategy and have six priorities; we know our customers, we provide great homes, we help communities to thrive, we are a great place to work, we spend our money wisely and we are well governed. We have to spend our money wisely, so creativity and innovation are critical. 

We have new Values which have been developed by our colleagues for our colleagues. People are at the top of our agenda. 

We are looking for an Executive Director of People, Culture and Engagement to help us execute our strategy for our colleagues and customers, in the right way. The role is a key leadership role in Gentoo’s Executive Team and will provide the strategic direction and leadership for the Group’s People, Tenant Voice and Marketing, Brand and Communications teams. However, as a member of the Executive team you will be a part of the team responsible for the Group’s success, so we expect you to care and help the whole team succeed. 

You will provide thought leadership and influence strategic decisions ensuring they are underpinned by colleague and customer voice and commercial context. You will drive the agenda and hold the organisation to account for the delivery and improvement of the Regulator of Social Housing’s Tenant Satisfaction Measures. This includes responsibility for the Group’s complaints and feedback from customers which provides us with invaluable insight into improving our services. You will understand that reputation and great communications are critical to organisation success and will be experienced in communications, brand, and reputation management. Developing strong business acumen and doing everything with a commercial mindset is essential. 

You will be an HR professional and inclusive leader with a strong social purpose and will want to make a difference to our customers and colleagues lives. You will ideally have worked in both the commercial and public sector but critically you will have a track record of leading successful cultural transformation and organisational development in a senior leadership role. You will be passionate about improving organisations and will have done this previously in a senior leadership role and will be known for your people leadership. 

Diversity of all types is welcome and wanted – we believe by working together as a team we get the best of everyone’s background, experience, and skills. We are an inclusive organisation with a commitment to flexible working. As a Sunderland based organisation living in the North East is important. 

We look forward to receiving your application, please note closing date for this opportunity is 20th July 23.