who we are.

Phil Woolas; Chair

Phil Woolas is a British politician. He was a Member of Parliament and a Minister on the Governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He is a renowned expert on Local Government finance and policy having served as Minister of State for Local Government and has over 35 years of experience in many aspects of the sector. Since leaving Parliament in 2010 he has been instrumental in delivering social housing impact funds and modern methods of construction.

Sajjad Hussain

Sajjad has worked in housing for over 30 years with extensive senior management experience at CEO level in various organisations both mainstream and specialist fields. Sajjad has served as board member of housing associations, charities and local authority regeneration boards. He now works for RentPlus.

Ian Brown

Ian is an experienced Private Equity professional with over 25 years experience in the SME and mid-market sectors.  He currently works as Non-Executive Director on a number of SME businesses having been appointed by Finance Yorkshire and other Private Equity houses. Ian has no sector bias but his key skill is to work with all stakeholders including owner managers, directors, and providers of finance, including debt and equity funders to drive positive outcomes.  He previously worked for 3i running their SME portfolio and founded the Bahrain Development Bank in 1992.

Robert Booth

Robert Booth is a property developed based in the North West of England. He brings commercial and financial expertise from the private sector to the benefit of CAG's charitable objectives.
Robert started his career as a young man in the building trade and used that practical experience to become a respected and high profile developer in Cheshire, Gt Manchester and across the North West region.
He has been involved in charitable work, young people’s sports development and now lives in Winslow, Chester where he does a number of non- executive director roles and is a renowned philanthropist.

Andrew Kilburn

Andrew spent his working life in Local Government in a variety of administrative, policy and managerial roles. In the final fifteen years of his career he was employed as Chief Executive with three different local authorities. Since his retirement from full time employment in 2010 Andrew has chaired a Multi Academy Trust in central Oldham and the Board of the local branch of the international charity for the homeless, Emmaus, in Mossley, Greater Manchester. In 2022 Andrew joined the Emmaus UK Board.