Carrie Hamilton, Consultant, Housing Action Network

Carrie Hamilton has over 20 years’ experience in affordable housing finance in the US and Australia. She contributed to the establishment of both the NRAS in 2008 and the NHFIC bond aggregator in 2018 and has served on Ministerial Advisory Committees at the State and Commonwealth levels. Carrie holds a Master of City Planning and previously applied her expertise at Macquarie in public-private partnerships. She continues to support CHP/investment industry program co-design and consults on the intersection of affordable housing and the Circular Economy.

Wendy Hayhurst, Chief Executive Officer, Community Housing Industry Association

Wendy was appointed in March 2019 as CEO at the Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA) the peak body representing not for profit community housing organisations across Australia.

Previously she led CHIA NSW – the state peak - for four years. Wendy has spent almost her entire career in social and affordable housing – working her way from the front line to a non-executive directorship and senior managerial roles in a wide range of housing provider organisations, regulatory bodies, specialist consultancies and performance benchmarking organisations.

She has in-depth knowledge and experience of the NSW, national and international community housing sector through her work with the NSW Regulator, in shaping and administering the National Regulatory System and her work in the United Kingdom. Wendy has an Executive Masters in Public Administration taught through the Australian and New Zealand School of Government. She also has a Postgraduate Diploma in Housing awarded by the Chartered Institute of Housing in the UK.

Associate Professor Christian (Andi) Nygaard, Deputy Director, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology

A/Prof Christian (Andi) Nygaard is the Deputy Director and Research Theme Leader of New Ways of Urban Living at Swinburne University of Technology’s Centre for Urban Transitions. He is also the AHURI Research Centre Director at Swinburne University of Technology.  As a social economist he leads research into long-term neighbourhood dynamics; housing market efficiency and affordability; and the political-economy and institutional drivers of governance innovation and adaptations in the provision of social and affordable housing. Recent work includes the Booster, the Housing Boost Aggregator (HBA) (with Carrie Hamilton), and building the economic case for social and affordable housing through social cost-benefit analysis. 

Scott Hastings, Investment Manager – Property, HESTA

Scott Hastings joined HESTA in 2005 and is responsible for overseeing HESTA’s $4.5 billion global unlisted property portfolio. This portfolio is invested across office, retail, industrial, healthcare and residential sectors in Australia/NZ, the USA and Europe. Outside of the property sector, Scott is also involved in evaluating and managing HESTA’s affordable housing investments within the debt space.  Scott holds a Master of Applied Finance from Macquarie University, and a Bachelor of Business (Accounting) and Bachelor of Business (Banking and Finance) from Monash University.