WftF Retraining speakers

Mark is a qualified town and country/environmental planner with over 30 years experience in planning, built and natural environment and housing organisations in the charitable, local government and central government agency sectors. He is currently CEO at MOBIE, an educational charity that helps train and inspire young people to innovate in the design and construction of homes.

Ben has worked in the field of Further education for 16 years and has worked for Weston College for the past 10 years. Ben started his career as a teacher but quickly became involved in the curriculum design and leadership. Ben was a Subject Area Manager in the construction faculty for 5 years before being appointed the Dean of Faculty for construction. He oversees several hundred learners across the full time, apprenticeship and commercial programmes ranging from entry Level 1 to Level 6 degree Level. Prior to a career in further education Ben was a self-employed site carpenter and was a contractor for Wimpey homes. Ben is very passionate about construction and promoting industry training to the next generation and still undertakes small carpentry works as a hobby, but he has also qualified in joinery, brickwork and property maintenance since working in education.

Chris co-founded Modulous in 2018 to develop an integrated digital and physical product suite that enables the delivery of high quality, affordable and sustainable homes anywhere in the world. Chris has 25 years’ experience in the construction industry, managing businesses across consulting, manufacturing, and construction. He has a proven track record of building high-performing, value-driven teams which have helped deliver numerous major projects for clients including British Airways, BBC, Grosvenor Estates, British Land, LandSec and the Crown Estate.

Deborah Smyth has been in the land and property business for over 15 years with extensive experience in real estate development in the UK and Ireland.

She owns Tempohousing UK & Ireland - an off-site modular manufacturing and construction business which specialises in the supply of high quality, rapidly built, modular homes.

Deborah’s key passions include looking after the environment and providing comfortable, affordable homes for all residents by delivering net zero carbon homes.

Rhian Newman has a wealth of experience within both the traditional & offsite construction sector (modular, timber frame & steel structures) with a rather impressive collection of contacts both in the UK and overseas.

She adopts very modern recruitment techniques and is in touch with the latest candidate attraction methods as well as upskilling candidates to assist with the ever-growing skills shortage both within offsite and traditional construction. She has previously been responsible for the recruitment of Offsite Manufacturing & Construction professionals on high profile projects on an international scale.

Rhian has an infectious appetite for the industry and prides herself on keeping her knowledge of the construction & manufacturing sectors up to date by learning from her clients and thought leaders across the industry sector. She demonstrates a real passion for the construction industry and keeps a keen eye on the latest niche projects both in the UK and overseas. Rhian has successfully placed candidates in Asia, New Zealand, Australia, North America and the Middle East.

Mark Bower is an experienced Technical Training Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the Learning and Development sector. He is currently managing Legal and General Modular Homes’ training provision, which encompassing Operations, Production, CNC, Health & Safety, Logistics, Site and Plant & Vehicle training and assessment. Legal and General Modular Homes prides itself on delivering high quality affordable homes to the UK housing market. The vision of the company is “Making the Housing market fairer for all”. We build our homes using modern methods of construction within a factory setting, employing people from all walks of life both experienced and inexperienced. The Modular Academy supports the growth and development of the skills necessary to attain business goals and deliver high quality homes to our customers.

Mark Bower successfully facilitated centre accreditation to deliver EAL (Specialist awarding body for engineering and manufacturing) industry recognised qualifications in house within the Modular Academy which supports the growth and development of our production population. As centre manager Mark leads the creation of learning and development strategies to ensure the growth and skills improvement of our workforce, creating a positive, engaging, and supportive culture, management upskilling programmes to ensure effective leadership within the business and management of the apprentice programme.