Housing, care and property-management organisation Wheatley Group has appointed its first vice-chair.

Sheila Gunn will take up the new non-executive role with the Group with immediate effect. Ms Gunn will be deputy to Alastair MacNish who was appointed Wheatley Group chairman in February this year.

A qualified solicitor, Ms Gunn has been a Wheatley board member since November 2012. She was previously on the board of Wheatley’s biggest subsidiary, GHA.

Sheila, who sits on the Group’s Audit, Strategic Development and Remuneration, Appointments, Appraisal and Governance committees, is an experienced independent non-executive director.

She left legal private practice in 2009 to pursue a management career in industry and undertake non-executive appointments. Her first assignment was with Ignis Asset Management, working on the merger of two asset management businesses within the Phoenix Group.

In addition to Wheatley Group, her current non-executive appointments include Phoenix Life Independent Governance Committee, Accounts Commission, Airdrie Savings Bank, YourPlace Property Management, Council of the Chartered Banker Institute, and the Ethics Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland.

Ms Gunn said: “It is an honour to be appointed as Wheatley’s first Vice-Chair. I look forward to working closely with my fellow Board members in and across the Group as we push ahead with our ambition to make homes and lives better.”

@WheatleyHousing