Assistant Director of Strategic Asset Management, Cobalt Housing

Cobalt’s Property Services structure was being redesigned to support greater delivery capacity, stronger control and clearer assurance as the organisation moved into the next phase of its investment plans. The new Assistant Director of Strategic Asset Management would sit at the centre of that agenda. 

The immediate brief covered asset strategy, sustainability, investment planning and property data. The postholder would have oversight of a 30-year investment programme alongside Cobalt's commitments to EPC C by 2030, MEES by 2039 and Net Zero by 2050. 

Behind those programmes sat a broader leadership question: how could Cobalt make increasingly confident decisions about where investment would create the greatest long-term value? 

Stock condition information could not sit separately from repairs trends. Energy performance could not be considered independently of investment requirements. Decisions on acquisitions, disposals and underperforming assets needed to draw on reliable evidence and a clear understanding of the financial and customer implications. 

Cobalt therefore needed someone able to turn several sources of property intelligence into a coherent view of asset performance and use that evidence to inform Executive Team and Board decisions. 

Commercial judgement mattered too. Significant investment programmes needed appropriate control over cost, quality and delivery. The successful candidate would need to challenge contractors and suppliers where necessary while maintaining relationships capable of supporting delivery over the longer term. 

This made the search broader than finding an asset management specialist. Cobalt was creating a senior role that needed to connect technical property knowledge with business planning, investment judgement, data and governance. 

Leadership was another important part of the brief. The appointment needed to raise expectations, develop colleagues and build greater accountability within the function while working effectively across Property Services, Finance, Customer, Governance and Digital. 

Cobalt appointed Laura Branthwaite as Assistant Director of Strategic Asset Management. 

Laura brought more than 25 years of housing leadership experience spanning asset investment, property services, repairs and organisational improvement. 

Her previous responsibilities included a £36 million annual investment budget across 11,500 homes, development of a new Homes Strategy and preparation for Awaab's Law. She also brought experience of Board reporting and performance improvement, with an understanding of how operational information can inform longer-term decisions about homes. 

That breadth closely reflected the reason Cobalt had created the role. 

The appointment added dedicated senior capacity to an area that would influence a substantial proportion of Cobalt's future expenditure. It also brought together responsibilities that needed to be viewed collectively: property data, sustainability, stock performance, investment planning and commercial delivery. 

Rather than treating the investment programme as a series of individual projects, Cobalt now had senior leadership focused on the evidence and judgement behind where, when and why investment should be made.