Joanna Killian

Joanna joined Essex County Council as Director for Finance and Performance in March 2005, taking on a wider brief of Director for Policy, Resources and Performance three months later. She started her role as Acting Chief Executive in June 2006 and was appointed on a permanent basis in September 2006, the first woman to hold the post, aged 41.

On 1st October 2007 she also took responsibility as Chief Executive for Brentwood District Council with a mandate to secure seamless and efficient services for customers and taxpayers across the tiers in this locality of Essex. It was the first such arrangement in the country.

Her priorities in Essex County Council have been to secure a major programme of transformation and efficiency within the organisation; drive up performance in key service areas and to deliver greater choice and control for local communities, most notably in relation to services for Older People. She has worked hard to deepen partnership working to secure delivery of one of the largest LAAs in the country, as well as to reach effective consensus for a new waste strategy for the county (£4.5billion over its lifetime)

She has been active in enhancing the capacity the County Council has to support the delivery of high quality, sustainable housing, regeneration and economic growth as well as secure the core infrastructure to meet the needs and ambitions of people and businesses in Essex. She is an active Director of the Thames Gateway South Essex Partnership.

Before joining Essex County Council, Joanna was Director of Local Government Performance and Improvement with the Audit Commission. In that role she led the Commission’s work on CPA as well as on a range of performance improvement initiatives in local government. She secured strong relationships across central government and with partner Inspectorates to underpin the delivery of CPA, as well as create a platform for more focussed and streamlined regulation.

She started her life in the Audit Commission within the Housing Inspectorate as it was being set up in 2000. As the Lead Housing Inspector for London she delivered a high quality programme of assessment in some of the most complex organisations and communities in the country, working closely with professional groups as well as tenant and leaseholder representatives. 

Housing and regeneration is Joanna's professional background having worked in Redbridge, Tower Hamlets and Croydon Councils since leaving Keele University in 1986. She has significant experience and expertise in social housing development and construction, procurement, estate renewal, housing finance, planning, the use of innovative public/private partnership and funding models (including S106 etc) regeneration, economic development and community cohesion. Until recently she was a Board Member and Chair of Finance of a Registered Social Landlord in East London, a growing organisation, with a strong development and renewal programme.