Taylor Wimpey is a FTSE 100 company that builds and sells more than 12,000 homes each year across the UK. Taylor Wimpey also makes positive contributions by adding sustainable social, economic and environmental value to the wider communities while developing key infrastructure projects. Billson-Ross is responsible for more than 4,000 employees operating in 24 different business units across the country as well as in Spain.
She has demonstrated versatility improving and influencing the people agenda within a variety of sectors including travel and tourism, broadcasting, banking and now house building. Billson-Ross started as a graduate, acquiring a detailed understanding of all the traditional HR disciplines, and has since implemented numerous leadership programmes, competency frameworks, reward models, HR self-serve systems, new performance management tools and employee cultural, communication and engagement plans.
She has demonstrated her ability to influence regardless of the operational environment, having influenced start-ups, turnarounds, acquisitions and growth agendas. She led a number of business-critical initiatives during the rapid growth of Sky in the late-1990s, the turnaround of Thomas Cook UK in 2012/13 and more recently as a key member of the group management team at Taylor Wimpey, which has reported record financial performance over the past few years and was awarded Glassdoor 2018 Best Places to work.
She recognised the importance of collaboration to improve the availability of skills across the house-building sector and actively participates and helps sculpt the agenda and activities on the Home Building Skills Partnership Leadership Board and CITB, which is a partner in Construction Skills (the sector skills council for the UK construction industry). Beyond the people agenda, she influences the wider social purpose aspirations on behalf of the company.
Billson-Ross, a chartered fellow of the CIPD, is the chair of Taylor Wimpey’s Charity Committee, which influences and aims to improve the lives of those less fortunate through partnering with a number of homelessness charities across the UK including Crisis, End Youth Homelessness (CentrePoint), CRASH and St Mungo’s.