Session Overview

When did your board last have someone under 30 around the table? Under 35? And if not — what conversations are you not having? What risks are you not seeing? What opportunities are you walking straight past because nobody in the room thinks that way?

The average age of a housing association board member in England is over 57. Meanwhile, the average age of a social housing tenant is falling. The people making decisions about homes, services and communities are increasingly disconnected — in age, in experience, and in outlook — from the people those decisions affect. That gap is widening. And every year it does, the decisions your board makes become less relevant to the people they affect.

This isn’t a session about box-ticking diversity. It’s about whether your governance model is fit for the decade ahead — or whether it’s quietly becoming a liability.

Join James Ballantyne for an honest, energising session on why recruiting younger board members isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s a strategic imperative. James has lived this question from both sides of the table: as a housing professional with over a decade of operational and transformation experience, and as one of the sector’s most prominent advocates for young voices in governance.

We’ll be getting into the questions that should be keeping governance leads up at night:

• The real case — not the optics one. What is the actual case — beyond optics — for bringing younger voices into housing association governance? What does the evidence say about the decisions boards make — and fail to make — without them?

• Digital natives in the boardroom — what does it mean to have people for whom digital, data and technology aren’t challenges to adapt to, but the air they breathe?

• The discomfort that produces better decisions — how do younger board members shift the dynamic of a room, and why does that friction, handled well, often produce better governance?

• What experience simply cannot replicate — there are things a 28-year-old housing professional knows about renting, digital services and financial precarity that no amount of good intentions or sector experience will teach. We’ll name them.

• The barriers — structural, cultural and unconscious — why younger people don’t apply, don’t stay, and often don’t feel welcome when they do. And what organisations serious about change are doing differently.

• So what should boards actually do? What are the practical steps to attracting, recruiting and retaining younger board members — and what gets in the way?

• Is there support out there? What programmes, networks and resources exist to help organisations make this shift — and how do you make the case internally to get started?

What you’ll take away:

• A sharp, evidence-informed case for younger board membership you can take straight to your Chair or CEO — without being dismissed

• Practical approaches to attracting and recruiting younger candidates — including where to find them and what puts them off

• Honest insight into the cultural and structural barriers that deter younger people — and advice on dismantling them

• Ideas for how to support younger board members once they’re in post, so they stay, grow and actually change the room

• First-hand learning from James’s own journey — what worked, what didn’t, and what he’d do differently

Who should attend?

• Board Chairs and Chief Executives thinking about succession, board renewal and long-term governance fitness

• Existing board members open to genuinely challenging how governance has always been done

• Company Secretaries and Governance leads responsible for board recruitment who want practical tools to change their pipeline

• HR and People Directors building future leadership pathways

• Younger housing professionals wondering whether a board role might be for them — and whether they’d actually be welcome

• Anyone who has ever sat in a board meeting and thought: we need some different voices in this room

About James Ballantyne

James Ballantyne is a housing professional with over a decade of experience spanning operational housing management, service design, process improvement and organisational transformation, having worked for a range of providers in London and the South West of England.

He currently serves as Process Design Lead at Legal & General Affordable Homes — one of the most ambitious organisations working to address the UK’s chronic affordable housing shortage — where he applies expertise in systems thinking, design thinking, innovation and change management to improve services for customers and stakeholders.

James is also a Non-Executive Director at Magna Housing, the forward-looking housing association serving Dorset and Somerset, where he supports the organisation in shaping and delivering its long-term ambitions. He is simultaneously a Board Trustee at the Chartered Institute of Housing, working with the executive team to shape the direction of the organisation and champion the interests of housing professionals across the country.

Perhaps most relevant to this session, James is the former Chair of CIH Futures — the Chartered Institute of Housing’s young professionals board — where he campaigned for the views of younger sector professionals, challenged the sector on key issues, and helped develop new ways of attracting and retaining talent in housing. His work through CIH Futures has directly shaped how the sector thinks about its pipeline of future leaders.

The sector is changing. The communities we serve are changing. The tenants of tomorrow are already here. Isn’t it time our boards were too?