#FRA21 Judges
Once the intermediary community has spoken, it's over to the judges!
Our panel of experts has been selected to provide a broad range of disciplines and knowledge - and with their years of combined experience, our judging panel are well-placed to select the deserving winners of these awards.
Buster
TolfreeUnited Trust Bank
Carolyn
Thornley-YatesHinckley & Rugby Building Society
Chris
PearsonHSBC
Craig
CalderBarclays
Craig
McKinlayKensington Mortgages
Esther
DijkstraLloyds Banking Croup
Helen
HarrisonSantander for Intermediaries
James
TuckerTwenty 7 Tec
Joshua
ElashMT Finance
Karen
RodriguesULS Technology
Liz
SymsConnect Mortgages
Louisa
SedgwickVida Homeloans
Marie
CatchLegal & General
Mark
BullardNatwest Group
Paul
BrettLandbay
Peter
BrodnickiMortgage Advice Bureau
Phil
RickardsBM Solutions
Richard
WalkerVirgin Money
Sophie
Mitchell-CharmanLendinvest
Steve
CoxFleet Mortgages
Stuart
Wilsonmore 2 life
Stuart
WilsonAIR Group
Buster
TolfreeUnited Trust Bank
Buster Tolfree is the Commercial Director – Mortgages at United Trust Bank. He has overseen the significant growth of the Banks mortgage division, which includes q specialist residential first mortgage proposition and a market-leading second charge product range.
With 20+ years of wider Financial Services management experience, including various senior roles within Banking and Lending institutions, Buster has extensive experience across a variety of function including sales, underwriting, customer management, litigation and asset management; specifically within the mortgage and consumer lending markets.
Carolyn
Thornley-YatesHinckley & Rugby Building Society
Carolyn has been in financial services for over 20 years, with previous experience in branch and business development management. An advocate for the mutual sector and bespoke underwriting practices, Carolyn says that she loves working for a medium sized building society as staff have more opportunity to influence and develop the business, focusing on positive stakeholder outcomes rather than shareholder returns.
Carolyn graduated in December from Loughborough University School of Business and Economics, with an MSc in Management and Leadership (Distinction), a programme which she says has been a game-changer both personally and professionally.
Chris
PearsonHSBC
Chris joined HSBC in 2014 as Regional Wealth Director, responsible for wealth and mortgage distribution within the branch network. At the same time he set up the UK distribution team for HSBC Intermediary Mortgages, which now has full UK BDM coverage and a telephony team with access to over 80% of the broker market. Chris has previously held senior positions in the broker market as Director of RBS Intermediary Partners, Head of Sales & Marketing at BM Solutions and Head of National Accounts & New Build at Halifax Intermediaries.
Craig
CalderBarclays
Craig Calder was appointed to his current role in July 2017. Barclays provides mortgage and mortgage related services to over one million mortgage customers across the UK. We offer our customers an award-winning range of flexible mortgage propositions.
In his role Craig is responsible for building the Barclays Intermediary Proposition across the UK and building and cementing new relationships in the market. In his previous role Craig managed the product portfolio and associated income. The product team has delivered a range of products that have consistently won consumer and industry awards, including Offset and Lifetime Trackers and most recently Barclays Family Springboard.
Craig Calder joined Barclays from RBS where he held several roles including Head of Mortgage Acquisition, Head of Category Development and Head of Existing Customers.
Craig
McKinlayKensington Mortgages
Craig joined the sales team in 2nd October 2017 as New Business Director responsible for Sales & Distribution Strategy across existing and New Channels.
Prior to this, Craig was Commercial and Channels Director at Lloyds Banking Group, with responsibility for analytics, pricing, customer experience, business development and channel engagement across retail and commercial banking.Until April 2016, Craig was Mortgage New Business Director, responsible for overseeing mortgage sales across Lloyds Banking Group. He also previously held senior positions at Homeserve as Director of Marketing, as well as RAC and Aviva as Head of Sales and Marketing.
Esther
DijkstraLloyds Banking Croup
Esther Dijkstra is the Managing Director, Intermediaries, for Lloyds Banking Group.
Previously she was the Director of Strategic Partnerships for LBG with responsibility for the National Account, Housing Development and Intermediary Experience teams as well as leading Mortgage Intermediary digital strategy.
Prior to that she was the head of Intermediary protection at Scottish Widows where she was instrumental in the launch of 'Scottish Widows Protect' into the Intermediary market, which went live in 2015.
Esther began her career in management consultancy with IBM in the Netherlands and moved to the UK in 2000. She previously worked for Legal & General where she was Commercial and Marketing Director of the L&G Network and UK Mortgage Club.
Esther lives with her husband and two children in Guildford.
Helen
HarrisonSantander for Intermediaries
Helen has over 20 years' experience within Financial Services, previously working as a BDM for Northern Rock and in the sub-prime packager market.
She joined Santander for Intermediaries in 2007 as a BDM in the North, and after many successful years was promoted to a Regional Manager with responsibility for eight BDMs.
At the start of 2019 Helen moved into the role of Head of Intermediary Distribution leading a team of over 100 colleagues.
James
TuckerTwenty 7 Tec
Having worked previously in investment management for Barclays, and as an analyst for a US/UK based venture capital firm, James Tucker became Managing Director of Twenty7Tec Group in 2015.
Since his appointment, Twenty7Tec has grown exponentially and is now a leading provider of cloud-based technology solutions to the Intermediary and Lending communities in the UK.
The company’s products include MortgageSource, a leading mortgage sourcing system with over 6000 intermediary users, SourceInsight, a data analytics platform used by some of the largest lenders in the UK, and MortgageApply, an application submission module designed to seamlessly and securely connect intermediary and lender systems.
Joshua
ElashMT Finance
Joshua studied Law at University College London graduating in 2001 and then began working as a financial adviser for National Westminster Bank. He became a member of the New York State Bar in 2005 and spent a number of years with a solicitors firm in London specialising in residential and commercial property transactions, commercial contracts, mortgages and compliance. In 2007 he joined the Endurance Real Estate Fund (Orco Property Group) in Paris, France where he had responsibility for investors relations, reporting and capital raising. Joshua co-founded multi-award winning property finance lender MT Finance in 2008 and is responsible for supervising and driving the underwriting strategy of the company, compliance, and has day to day overview of all operations.
Karen
RodriguesULS Technology
Karen has nearly 20 years' experience in the mortgage intermediary sector. Karen joined ULS technology in April 2020 from Vida Homeloans, where she was Corporate Sales Manager for almost 4 years.
In previous roles, Karen has worked for One Savings Bank, where she was a National Account Manager working on both the Kent Reliance and Prestige Finance brands, as well as holding positions at Aldermore Mortgages, GE Money and Kensington.
She started her career in financial services with Halifax and has worked closely with mortgage intermediaries ever since, building a deep understanding of relationship and service requirements of networks, clubs and brokers.
Karen has considerable experience from her time in the intermediary space and as a key member of the ULS technology Senior Leadership Team is working tirelessly to achieve the company's aim of revolutionising the home buying and selling process.
Liz
SymsConnect Mortgages
Chief Executive Officer and founder of Connect Mortgages and Connect for Intermediaries, Liz has been providing mortgage and financial advice for over 20 years. Liz and her team over of 50 staff arrange all types of mortgages and protection with a particular strength in the specialist markets.
In 2012 Liz set up the specialist mortgage network that now supports over 200 mortgage brokers who to operate not only in the mainstream market, but also provide advice in specialist areas such as complex buy-to-let, commercial and bridging.
Liz spends a large part of her time delivering training to brokers that focus on the brokers perspective of the market and the lender's criteria and requirements, and regularly writes articles that feature in the trade press.
Mark
BullardNatwest Group
Mark is responsible for the leadership of sales managers and BDM's for NatWest Intermediary Solutions. With over 30 year's experience in banking and financial service sector, he has spent the last 17 in the Intermediary market in a variety of management positions with the last 9 years in his current role as Head of Intermediary Sales.
During his tenure he has delivered a number of market leading initiatives, most notably Live Talk and the partnership relationship model, which has support the channel deliver year on year mortgage lending growth.
Paul
BrettLandbay
Paul Brett is Managing Director, Intermediaries at BTL lender, Landbay and has overseen over half a billion pounds of new distribution.
He has held senior sales and marketing roles at lenders SPML, Borro, Masthaven and Foundation Home Loans, having started his career at Hambros Bank.
Paul is an advocate of mortgage brokers and financial advisers everywhere. He founded and ran mortgage packager, FastCom, prior to the 2008 credit crunch as well as setting up Freehold, the packager association, which achieved mortgage lending distribution of £1.6 billion and created a level playing field for packagers who concentrated on quality over quantity.
Peter
BrodnickiMortgage Advice Bureau
Peter has been the CEO of MAB since 2001, and has led the business to become one of the sector’s leading and most forward-thinking mortgage networks, as well as the UK’s most recognised intermediary consumer brand. In November 2014, Peter listed MAB on the London Stock Exchange Alternative Investment Market (AIM). As well as driving the growth strategy of MAB, Peter also spends a lot of his time advocating the sector as a whole. He is passionate about the hugely important role the intermediary plays and also how the sector needs to embrace technology and evolve to meet customers’ rapidly changing needs.
Phil
RickardsBM Solutions
As head of BM Solutions, Phil has responsibility for BM's business development teams within the intermediary market. This includes the nationwide team of BDMs and the telephone-based BDM Team. An extensive knowledge of the BM business and the buy-to-let market itself have enabled Phil to lead BM through market highs and lows, ensuring consistency of support for both the buy-to-let sector and the intermediary mortgage market.
In a 36 year financial services career, Phil's previous roles have included Financial Adviser, Regional Sales Manager, National Sales Manager and Head of Sales. Prior to joining BM, Phil was Marketing Manager at TSB and has held other posts with Pearl Assurance and the Commercial Bank of Wales. He has also been Chairman of IMLA and is an ambassador for the housing charity Shelter.
Richard
WalkerVirgin Money
Richard leads the Intermediary Sales Team for Virgin Money UK PLC. The team are responsible for selling Virgin Money and Clydesdale mortgage brands.
Richard has worked in Intermediary Mortgages since 2000 at The Virgin One Account, First Active and RBS before joining Virgin Money in 2013. In addition to the day to day activities Richard also headed up the bank's entry into New Build and Shared Ownership markets.
Outside of work Richard enjoys cooking, gardening and spending time with his wife and 8 year old daughter.
Sophie
Mitchell-CharmanLendinvest
I head up Intermediary Sales for LendInvest and have done since May 2020, having been a BDM with the company for the previous 3 years. I have been in the Financial Services market for the last 14 years, during which time I have worked as a broker, in the pensions and investment market and then into lending on both the short and term loan lines.
Steve
CoxFleet Mortgages
Steve has over 25 years' experience in financial services, having started out as a mortgage broker in the early 1990's.
He was Head of Commercial Development with Sesame Bankhall Group for 8 years, prior to joining Hodge Lifetime as Business Development Director in 2016.
Steve joined Fleet Mortgages in November 2018 looking after the sales and marketing functions as well as leading Fleet's relationship strategy with key intermediary partners.
Stuart
Wilsonmore 2 life
Stuart joined as the Corporate Marketing Director for Key Group in July 2014 and heads a team responsible for the marketing of a range of Group B2B brands including one of the later life lending market's biggest lenders, more2life.
He has over 30 years of experience in the Financial Services sector, having worked for a range of well-known brands including Friends Provident, Abbey Life, Just Retirement and LV=.
He was part of a successful start-up brand that introduced Fixed Term Annuities to the UK retirement market and also ran his own marketing agency specialising in helping advisers working in the mortgage market.
Stuart
WilsonAIR Group
Stuart began his Financial Services career in 1990 as a direct salesman for Sun Life of Canada, working through the ranks till taking the role of National tied agency Director at the turn of the century.
He then left and launched his own company and in the early 2000's sold his company and became the Mortgage Distribution Director to build a mortgage proposition in readiness for full mortgage regulation for one of the largest IFA networks in the market.
In 2005 he went out again and set up a direct to consumer Mortgage business, before being invited to be a founding member of the AMI Equity Release working group. In 2007 he launched a specialist support Club for advisers to develop their Equity Release business. The business grew rapidly, gaining a multitude of National Awards and Stuart became a regular conference speaker and sector writer on the subject of B2B support services in the Later Life lending arena.
2014 he launched the Later Life Academy, followed in 2016 with the multi award winning Air Soucing software platform.
A national rebranding in 2019 to Air Group and a substantial investment by Key Group , culminated in a record breaking year in 2020 (despite Covid!)
