Brendon O’Neill has returned to the business as Divisional Managing Director (DMD) for McCarthy Stone’s Southern region. The appointment comes as former DMD Shane Paull became the company’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) on 3 April.
Brendon was previously DMD for McCarthy Stone’s South East division and is hugely experienced in the housebuilding sector, having held similar roles at Barratt, Bovis, and latterly at Persimmon. McCarthy Stone’s Southern division is one of its four operating regions and covers the area from Hampshire across to Cornwall and South Wales. He will manage the division’s 14 open and selling sites and its 13 sites in development, along with buying 12 new sites a year. Brendon will report to CEO John Tonkiss and joined on 17 April.
Kim Caldwell will also return to McCarthy Stone as its new Group Sales & Marketing Director. Kim worked at McCarthy Stone between 2002 and 2018 across several roles, including Marketing Director and Resales Director. For the past five years she has been Sales Director at Bellway Homes. Kim will report to Shane Paull and will join on 12 June.
Kim will be responsible for McCarthy Stone’s Group-wide sales and marketing activity and will capitalise on its market-leading position to drive sales growth. This includes delivering the Group’s brand strategy and progressing its move into rental and other tenures, which is providing customers with a wider range of choices to access its products and services.
Commenting on the appointments, John Tonkiss, McCarthy Stone’s CEO, said: “It is great to secure the return of Kim and Brendon. They have a deep understanding of our business and the retirement community sector, and were both strong performers when they were with us before. They bring huge experience of the housebuilding sector and will help deliver our plans to grow our business back to building and selling more than 2,000 new properties a year.”
McCarthy Stone is currently selling across c.100 developments in England and Wales and completed 1,210 new units in FY22. Across the last decade it has been responsible for more than half of all retirement communities opened in the UK, and the company is known for its quality and high levels of customer service – it is the only housebuilder to have received the HBF Five Star award for customer service every year it has been run.
