MAGNA Housing group has appointed a new head of IT.

David Connoley has taken over the role following the retirement of David Block who had been head of IT for the previous 13 years.

Mr Connoley has previous housing experience working with organisations including the Barnet Group, Servite Houses (now Viridian Housing) and Moat Housing Group.

He has experience in a wide variety of other sectors with consultancy time spent at blue chip organisations including Marks and Spencer, Barclays Bank and Virgin Atlantic.

On completion of his degree in applied physics from City University, David started his career at CERN, one of the largest nuclear research establishments in the world, before moving into the world of commercial IT.

Mr Connoley said: “My role is all about understanding the requirements of the organisation and putting them into a package of things that the team will deliver. “Good project management is really key to the job, but you can’t do it without a great team. I’m lucky that I have a first class team here at Magna with many years’ experience and strong skills in IT.”

One of the things he plans to focus on is improving mobile working so that Magna can take services to tenants rather than the other way round. This is likely to include upgrading a number of business systems to the very latest versions this year.

Mr Connoley added: “I spent twenty years as a self-employed consultant specialising in interim IT management. “You get very good at going into an organisation at short notice and fixing things. But this work takes me all over the country and I want to put down some roots now.

“I’m a keen yacht master so being based in Dorset is ideal.

“Magna is a great place to work. Everyone is very friendly and helpful so I’m delighted to be appointed to this role.”