KHT appoints chairman

KHT Services, the trading subsidiary and social enterprise of Knowsley Housing Trust, has appointed Maggie O'Carroll as chairman.

KHT Services, which is now part of the First Ark group of companies, provides housing repair and maintenance, including gas servicing and repairs across the North West, and as a social enterprise invests its profits in the communities in which it works and into the development and improvement of the services which it offers.

O'Carroll will help to take the business forward and also hopes to foster entrepreneurship within social housing and KHT's social enterprise activities through her new role.

She is the founder and chief executive of Liverpool-based social enterprise The Women's Organisation, which KHT claims is now the largest women's economic development agency in the UK.

O'Carroll brings significant experience of commercial enterprise to the KHT Services board and she will also sit on the First Ark board, taking a lead on social enterprise activities which the Group intends to strengthen and promote.

She is a business studies graduate with a masters in community enterprise from Cambridge University. She also lectures part time at the school of management at Liverpool John Moores University and is a visiting entrepreneurial expert to Simmons College in Boston, USA.

O'Carroll said: "I hope to work with the team to grow the business so that we can deliver more effective services to our tenants, but also deliver more on social outcomes for our communities in terms of job creation, training opportunities and apprenticeships."