Debby Ounsted CBE

Debby Ounsted CBE is a Non-Executive Director of Funding Affordable Homes (FAH) and of the FAH Housing Association. Master Mercer in 2014-2015 and a Court member, she is Vice-chairman of Thomas Telford School and a governor of Hammersmith Academy.

With a degree in modern and mediaeval languages from Cambridge in 1972, she has spent her professional life in public service in the charitable, voluntary and local government sectors with a special interest in affordable housing, disability and social care. She was Chief Executive of the Octavia Hill Housing Trust and also of Habinteg Housing Association, before working for fifteen years as a governance and management consultant in the social housing sector.

Debby has served on a variety of housing association and charity boards. From 2000-2011 she was Trustee and then chair of the social policy research charity, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and of its sister organisation the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust.

In 2014 Debby was appointed CBE for services to the charitable sector in the U.K. 

She has a post-graduate diploma in publishing from Oxford Brookes. She also holds a qualification in public sector housing finance and has written widely on housing and disability issues.