Rachael Mills co-founded and is the secretariat of The Heat Network, a peer group for social housing providers to share good practice, improve customer service and influence policy on communal and district heating schemes.  We have 40 housing association and local authority members, and are supported by NHMF, NHF, CIH and the LGA.   Collectively we manage over 150,000 homes on heat networks and have thousands of other customers living on heat networks managed by third parties. 

Rachael is also a co-founder and Director of Chirpy Heat, the UK’s leading independent heat network specialists in the social housing sector, a Non-Executive Director for the Association for Decentralised Energy, and a co-founder of the District Heating Divas, one of the fastest growing diversity and inclusion networks in the energy industry with over 1000 members across UK, Europe and India.  In 2024 Rachael was awarded an OBE for services to energy efficiency, and diversity and inclusion.