30,000-home housing association makes Louise Bassett’s role permanent 

Gentoo has hired Louise Bassett as its permanent chief executive.

The 30,000-home association has decided to give Bassett the job on a permanent basis after serving as an interim since the sudden departure of Nigel Wilson in January.

Louise Bassett (002)

Louise Bassett has been appointed permanent CEO of Gentoo after serving as interim for nearly five months

Bassett has worked at the Sunderland-based landlord for seven years, serving as HR director initially and then as executive director of corporate services. She previously worked for biopharmaceutical company Merck for 14 years in a series of HR-related roles and before that for Pfizer.

Bassett said: “I am delighted to take on the role of CEO permanently. I feel very proud to be leading such a purposeful and dedicated organisation.

“Together we commit to putting our tenants at the heart of business decision making and to creating better working lives for everyone at Gentoo. I look forward to working with colleagues and stakeholders as we continue to improve our services to tenants.

In its financial statement for 2021/22, Gentoo announced it was scaling back its medium-term development programme due to planning and contractual issues and delays to the Empty Homes Programme.

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It had initially been planning to build 1,208 homes over five years but revised its business plan to aim for a minimum of 732.