Later living and care development company Castleoak has made two board-level appointments.

Kate Still (pictured) is appointed as chief operations officer, focusing on the business’s performance and organisational development, responsible for all non-financial aspects, including people; customer satisfaction; communications; supply chain management; and health, safety and environmental management.

Still was previously chief operations officer at Citizen Housing with responsibility for 850 staff, 30,000 properties and revenue of more than £150 million. She has worked with some of the UK’s largest social housing companies and was previously national housing director at Sanctuary Group.

With a background spanning finance, housing maintenance, social enterprise, local government and management consultancy, Still has over 20 years’ experience as a business strategist and operations leader with a focus on innovation, continuous improvement and transformational change.

Still said: “I want to work with a business that delivers high levels of both financial and social value, so I was drawn to Castleoak because of its values and its heritage of creating a high quality, purpose-driven product that addresses a really important need. I am also passionate about really understanding customers and markets, where they are heading and leading them through innovation. So I feel my experience in that will give me real insight into how we develop our offer, and am delighted to take up a position that is so key to realising Castleoak’s ambition to lead its market.”

Lisa Gledhill also joins Castleoak as managing director, developments with responsibility for the company’s development business and joint ventures.

Gledhill has more than 25 years’ experience as a development and construction leader and a background spanning real estate, infrastructure and property development, investment, construction and consultancy. She started her career with Arup, spending her first 10 years in technical, digital and project management roles. After gaining financial qualifications, she moved to Laing O’Rourke and then to Lendlease, working in investment, construction and development roles, latterly leading major mixed-use redevelopment schemes in London and Singapore. 

She is the non-executive director and chair at EdCity Development, a not-for-profit development which aims to create an education and charity hub in White City, London. Gledhill is also a chartered engineer.

Gledhill said: “With a momentum that was building ahead of and that has been accelerated by the pandemic, I believe we now have an unprecedented opportunity to make step-changes in this sector, centred around excellent customer experience,  addressing flexibility around tenure and affordability. So this is a great time to be joining Castleoak, with its fantastic track record and ambitions to combine that with the best ideas and innovations, from within the sector and beyond, to lead this vibrant market.”