Our Story
Vantage was created over 20 years ago to help social housing providers deliver sustainable change. Our expertise includes reviewing, recommending and implementing change across Repairs & Maintenance, Organisational Design and Transformation.
We get under the hood of a business using our analytical insight to understand their value drivers and barriers to change. We help leaders focus their attention on projects and activities that will have the greatest impact on achieving their strategic goals, improving margin and customer experience.
We have built excellent relationships in the sector and have a strong knowledge base drawn from our annual State of the Sector Reports, regular surveys and our range of executive director forums that share strategic best practice and collaboration opportunities.
We work with leading social housing providers including Thirteen Group, PA Housing, Longhurst Group, Midland Heart, Your Housing Group, Stonewater, Torus and Pobl.
Our focus is on helping make changes that will stick, leading to sustainable financial and operational improvements.
Break the cycle of endless reviews with no impact.
Our Executive Team
Tony Bryan
Tony has over 20 years’ experience of helping housing providers transform their organisations, become more financially resilient, build more homes and improve the customer experience. Tony has held many senior appointments in the private sector including Finance Director with BAe Systems and Johnson Controls Automotive, heading up lean implementation teams across Europe and the US with Toyota and Ford Motor Company. Tony established the Performance Improvement Club for social housing Finance Directors to share learning, provide access to sector experts and achieve genuine business improvement. In addition, Tony developed Global Accounts Plus in 2015, an online financial performance comparison tool that enables finance directors to compare themselves to their peers. Tony is a qualified accountant and an experienced business consultant, speaker and trainer in Performance Improvement techniques. His work has featured in CIPFA, CIMA, ACCA, Housing, Property Maintenance and Financial Times publications. Tony is a regular keynote speaker and contributor to sector events.
Rob Bryan
Rob has extensive experience leading transformation projects in social housing Rob helps housing providers to deliver significant improvements and savings and more importantly, leaves them with the knowledge and experience to continuously improve. Rob does this by providing them with the insight and approaches for buying better and working smarter. Rob is an expert in helping teams to effectively embrace change and engaging them in new ways of working.
Rob has established, and facilitates a range of strategic forums for directors who want to share best practice, including the Repairs & Maintenance forum and Operations Directors forum. Rob is a frequent speaker at social housing conferences and regularly writes articles and blogs on transformation, robotic process automation, organisational design and R&M for sector publications.
Rob is a qualified accountant and prior to moving into consultancy held various senior Finance roles in the Engineering and Property Sectors in the UK and Australia.
Sir Malcolm Thornton
Malcolm spent 14 years in local government, before entering Parliament in 1979 where he served for 18 years. He was Chairman of the House of Commons Select Committee for Education from 1988-97.
Since leaving Parliament, he has held a number of non-executive directorships with SMEs, two as Chairman. In September 2009, he was appointed as Chairman of the Birmingham Local Education Partnership, overseeing an investment programme in new or refurbished schools of £1.2M. He was Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Board of Governors of Liverpool John Moores University. Sir Malcolm was knighted in HM. The Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 1992.
Neil Burns
Neil has over 15 years’ experience of delivering consultancy projects across the housing sector. Neil was at Vantage at its inception in 1999 and has delivered on large scale transformation projects. Neil is a highly skilled consultant who loves to help clients shape and then fulfil their organisational ambitions. He is a qualified accountant and has held several senior finance roles in the private sector. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and a qualified coach, highly skilled in engaging teams in change programmes.