Meet the Board

  • CHAIR

    Liz Taylor

    CHAIR

  • Paul McDevitt

  • Derek Ferguson

    HFS MANAGING DIRECTOR

  • Malcolm MacLeod

  • Lili Peters

  • John Quinn

DEREK FERGUSON

Derek joined the Board in December 2020 and is the Senior Operations Manager for HCS Building Services in Scotland.

He has over 30 years trades and management experience and has established an outstanding reputation in services across wide-ranging sectors including servicing, commercial, domestic, public-sector contracts and social housing.

Derek has held key roles in Scotland’s leading construction, build & maintenance businesses and has built strong partnerships with key customers in local authorities & housing associations and commercial. 

He also has a strong background in insurance repair contracts.

PAUL McDEVITT

Paul joined the Board in 2019.  He is a highly experienced business leader with specialist expertise in business strategy, change management, collaboration and leadership & development.

Paul has worked in the UK construction and property sector for over 20 years, initially with main contractors and latterly as Managing Director of a business consultancy firm specialising in the construction sector. He worked with business leaders from across the construction sector with all sizes of business from micro through to international corporates, helping them improve productivity, develop their people and increase profitability.

Paul has recently taken up the new role of Business Development Director within TÜV SÜD’s Real Estate division.  In his new role Paul will develop and lead the new Building Advisory Service in the UK.  Paul joined TÜV SÜD, one of the world’s leading technical services providers, in February 2017, were he previously held the roles of Business and Staff Development Director within their MEP Design Consultancy and latterly was Head of Marketing for TÜV SÜD in the UK.  He is also an important part of TÜV SÜD UK Senior Management Team.

LIZ TAYLOR

Liz joined the Board in December 2020. With 30+ years specialising in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), Liz developed her career in brand marketing, new product development and project management, by working on a number of well-known household brand names within the food and drinks industry, both in the UK and overseas.

Forming her own consultancy some years ago, she is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. She is a past-president of Scottish Women in Business (SWIB)

Liz volunteers for Victim Support Scotland and with over 20 years’ service she was also a board trustee between 2012-19; three years of which as vice chair and interim chair where she was chair of the governance committee.

MALCOLM MACLEOD

Malcolm is a Chartered Surveyor, and a Chartered Builder and has worked in the construction and house building sectors for nearly 45 years. In 2021 he retired from his post as NHBC (National House Building Council) Director for Scotland.

He started his career working for a number of small house builders, before moving into local government building control where ultimately he became involved in the regeneration of tenements in Glasgow leading him to specialise in Building Surveying. 

Malcolm joined Scottish Special Housing Association as it was transitioning into Scottish Homes where he became responsible for managing the capital, refurbishment and maintenance programmes for its homes in the south of Glasgow. Whilst at Scottish Homes, along with colleagues he established a new Housing Association through stock acquisition and was appointed its director in 1999. In 2001 he was appointed Director of NHBC Scotland becoming responsible for the overall management of its Scottish operations.

Malcolm has held various Non-Executive Director (NED) positions with different organisations and currently sits as an NED on the New Homes Ombudsman Services Board. 

LILI PETERS

Lili, a qualified Chartered Accountant, is the founder and chief number cruncher at Visual Stat Solutions with 30 years' worth of know-how under her belt. Her specialisms are in Business Analyst Services - creating bespoke Performance Management Reports, presenting statistics in a visual manner that empowers decision making - and in carrying out Pre-Submission ARC Verifications for Registered Social Landlords.

Lili initially joined the social housing sector as a Finance Manager in 1999, progressing to more senior responsibilities and later moving into a specialist software support, training and data interrogation role. Lilian set up her own consultancy business in 2016.  Visual Stat Solutions assists Registered Social Landlords stay on top of reporting and performance management, working with anything numerical that makes other people's eyes glaze over and brains shut down, turning data into formats that allow informed decision making.

JOHN QUINN

John has around 20 years’ experience in the housing field and is currently the Director of Govanhill Housing Association in Glasgow.  Previous to that he was the Head of Land & Property Assets for a Scottish City Council, overseeing corporate asset management development and landlord functions. He was once Director of a public/private joint venture property development company in Edinburgh, covering 3500 new homes, five schools, a new town centre, park land and transport infrastructure which won six major design awards and a government sustainability accolade.