Jean has been Chief Executive of St Basils since 2000 and prior to that had over 20 years’ experience of managing housing and neighbourhood services in a number of Local Authorities in the North East and Midlands.

Jean is a member of Birmingham’s Housing Partnership Board and Birmingham Social Housing Partnership Executive. She is Chair of the West Midlands Combined Authority Homelessness Taskforce and is a member of the Government’s Advisory Panel on Rough Sleeping and Homelessness and chairs the national Youth Homelessness Parliament.

She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing and was awarded an honorary doctorate from University of Birmingham in 2006 and Membership through Distinction of Faculty of Public Health in 2018. In 2019, she received the President’s Award from Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce.

On 13th July 2022, Jean was awarded an honorary doctorate from Birmingham City University.