Mark Gittos

Mark Gittos is a housing-sector innovator, resident engagement specialist, published author and customer influence leader with more than 20 years’ experience across social housing, resident participation, place shaping and community engagement.

His work has always focused on one clear purpose: helping housing organisations listen better, understand deeper and act with greater confidence. Mark has worked with and alongside housing associations across the UK, supporting better approaches to resident voice, customer engagement, digital inclusion, service improvement and meaningful influence.

People often say that if you cut Mark in two, he would have customer engagement and influence running through him like a stick of rock. It is not a role he performs; it is the way he thinks, challenges, creates and leads.

As an author of resident engagement books, Mark challenges traditional approaches to involvement and promotes practical, inclusive models that help organisations move from listening to learning, and from learning to visible change.

Through Open Thoughts, Mark is now pushing that belief further, encouraging the housing sector to embrace stronger cross-collaboration, shared intelligence and open-source thinking. His ambition is simple: stop good ideas being trapped in individual organisations, and create a sector where learning is shared, improvement is faster and residents benefit from better collective thinking.