Debby Ounsted CBE

Debby is a social impact adviser to Edmond de Rothschild Reim, having been a non-executive director of Funding Affordable Homes, investment fund bringing equity to finance the development of social and supported housing across the UK and its registered subsidiary Funding Affordable Home Housing Association.

Her career has been in the housing association, charity governance and social policy sectors as chief executive, as Board chair and as consultant to a variety of housing associations, local authorities and ALMOs.

She is a trustee of the Rose Castle Foundation, a charity that works globally for peace and reconciliation.

From 2021 she served on the Commission set up by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to reimagine social care.

A Court member of the Mercers Livery Company, Debby served as the first female Master in 2014-2015 and is still closely involved in the Company’s philanthropic and social investment activities. She is a director of Gresham College Council and served as  a coopted member of the City of London Corporation’s social investment board. 

Until 2011, Debby was Chair of the independent social research foundation, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and of its sister organisation the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust. She is also a past governor both of Hammersmith Academy, and of Thomas Telford School.

Her first degree was from Cambridge University in modern and mediaeval languages. She is now studying for a degree in Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford.

Debby was appointed CBE in 2014 for services to the charity sector in the UK.