“This is awful. The economy is on its knees, largely because we’ve sold loads of people stuff they don’t need for money they don’t have.”

These are the thoughts that ran through Sarah Jones’ head at a retail consortium event when she was director of finance at Carpetright during the global financial crisis in the late 2000s.

Now the chief executive of the nation’s largest housing provider for later living, she feels her work allows her to have “an immediate positive impact.”