“You know, when you get to a point where you think your whole life has been building up to something?”, says Phil Andrew.

Not everyone manages to achieve their life’s purpose, but Andrew has reached exactly where he wants to be in his career, and he is understandably happy about it. 

The chief executive of Orbit Group is in his first ever full-time role in the social housing sector (he was previously on the board of Raven Housing Trust) having joined in July 2023, and he has been moving quickly to put better customer service at the centre of his plan for the 45,000-home landlord.

He has already overseen or set in train a blizzard of activity to achieve his customer experience improvement aims, from changes to governance, new hires, investment in technology and bringing tenants onto the organisation’s group board. Where does this energy, focus and desire to make a difference come from?