Inspiring Business by Sharing Success
Added by Love Business East Midlands | 18 September 2017
UPDATED: 18 September 2017
Whetstone-based Westleigh has created the board to oversee its recently-created divisions in Yorkshire and the West Midlands, in addition to its established East Midlands business, in order to ensure operational consistency.
The firm, which is backed by Palatine Private Equity, has opened new offices in both of its expansion regions this calendar year. It is now planning to push as far south as Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire in the near future.
All four members of the Central Services Directorate are long-serving members of Westleigh’s team and will bring their expertise in specific business processes to their directorships.
Suki Deol began her career with Westleigh 20 years ago as a Personnel Assistant, rising to the position of HR Manager and now HR Director. She will ensure the company’s policies and procedures are correctly implemented across all regions and that its human resources are distributed efficiently.
She said: “Naturally I’m excited about the company’s expansion and the role I can play. We’ve added almost a third to our workforce over the past 12 months, which demonstrates how exciting it is to work for Westleigh at the moment.”
Gary Turner has been appointed as Partnerships Director, 10 years after joining Westleigh as Head of Partnerships and Investments.
He will be responsible for the affordable housing side of the business, establishing new relationships with housing association and local authority clients in the new regions as well as maintaining relationships with existing clients and the Homes and Communities Agency. He will work with the Land Team to establish and identify priority locations for new affordable development opportunities.
Gary said: “There’s a new challenge in managing the delivery of our strategy across our various regions. I look forward to exploring the new opportunities that await us.”
Robert Orr has spent 11 years with the business, beginning as a New Homes Manager before becoming Sales and Marketing Manager. His new position as Sales Director will see him run the operational side of Westleigh’s private sale homes business, creating top-quality developments with options for first-time buyers and growing families.
He said: “We now have a much wider geographic area and there are many development opportunities coming forward. It’s certainly a really exciting time to be taking up this new role.”
Steve Dudman started with Westleigh in June 1998 as a trainee site manager and soon progressed to managing his own sites. During this time he showed a keen interest in Health and Safety.
As part of the company’s growth and commitment to promoting from within, he was identified to fill the role of Health and Safety Advisor, then Health and Safety Manager.
For the last 12 years his role has been to ensure the wellbeing of all employees, contractors and subcontractors working on Westleigh sites and at the company’s timber frame manufacturing division, Westframe.
As Health and Safety Director, he will ensure Westleigh’s construction operations across the different regions are compliant with legislation, and will champion the firm’s involvement in the Considerate Constructors Scheme.
Steve said: “These are exciting times of rapid growth for Westleigh and the challenge is to ensure that Health and Safety is managed consistently across each of our regions.”
Westleigh’s Managing Director, Ian Jones, explained: “Since we received a £21m investment from private equity firm Palatine last summer, with a view to expanding beyond Westleigh’s East Midlands heartlands, we have thought long and hard about how to facilitate that.
“By promoting these long-serving staff to oversee the expansion and ensure it runs smoothly, we are giving the people who helped make the business what it is today a chance to shape its future.
“Their intricate knowledge of our operations in the East Midlands will allow them to extend that blueprint into the new regions and offer insightful guidance to regional management.”
Westleigh builds new homes across the East and West Midlands, Cambridgeshire and Yorkshire, including homes for sale and properties for affordable rent on behalf of local councils and housing associations. It manufactures its own eco-friendly timber frames for the construction industry at its Westframe factory in Leicestershire. For more information about Westleigh contact 0116 277 3324 or visit www.westleigh.co.uk.