South African brings banking and elderly care experience to the role
Ken moved to the UK to be with his children and grandchildren
|
Kenneth Keen, generally known as Ken, joined Regenerate–RISE this week as the charity’s new Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Ken comes with 15 years’ experience in aged care and held the position of CEO of the fourth largest retirement and institutional care service in South Africa.
With his English wife Kim, he immigrated to the UK at the beginning of 2020, to be with three of their four children and three grandchildren, who have resided here for a number of years.
In addition to Ken’s knowledge of working with the elderly, he has over 25 years’ experience in banking and social housing, having held various executive management positions in these sectors.
When asked what his career highlights were, he replied that he was part of a team that established a South African Building Society from scratch and was still there after 15 years, when it was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
He noted his second career highlight as being the driver of a strategy that doubled the size of the elderly care service where he served as the CEO for 14 years - to over 1,100 retirement cottages, two Frail Care facilities and one Supported Living service, caring for over 1,800 residents.
He added that, without a doubt, he had most enjoyed working during his career in the elderly care sector and that he found this work to be very rewarding and was passionate about serving senior citizens.
Ken stated that he was looking forward to meeting the members of Regenerate-RISE and noted that his leadership style was an “open door” policy for both staff and members, should they wish to raise any concerns or share new ideas for the centres.
Mo Smith, Founder and Chair of Trustees said, “The last 18 months have been a very challenging time for us as an organisation and more importantly, for all our clients. We are looking forward to learning from our experience and maintaining our vision to reach the isolated elderly across the borough of Wandsworth. We are looking forward very much to having a CEO on board and welcome Ken to the team - we are excited to be entering a new phase in the history of Regenerate-RISE.”
Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We've always done that and won't be changing, in fact we'd like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we'd be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you'd like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site. |
August 13, 2021
