Together announced senior hires to build corporate relationship team

Specialist lender Together is focusing on growth in the corporate lending market by significantly expanding its corporate relationships team with a series of senior appointments.

It has more than doubled the size of the team with two additional corporate relationship directors and two corporate relationship support managers in response to fast-growing demand for its flexible secured lending products.

Their appointments come just six months after the creation of a new role of head of corporate relationships in November when Andrew Charnley joined Together from Lloyds Banking Group where he was head of asset-based lending (SME).

Together’s corporate lending business aims to provide finance for a wide range of customers from large businesses to individual investors, who are seeking to raise capital or acquire property or land, and typically, may seek to borrow £1 million or more

The new appointments include Sonia Mann and Andrew Fouli who join as Corporate Relationship Directors in the Midlands and London respectively.

Sonia brings more than 20 years’ experience in business development – most recently with Santander’s asset finance arm having also worked for RBS and Barclays in the past. Andrew, whose banking career spans more than 30 years, joins from Cynergy Bank – formerly Bank of Cyprus UK – where he worked as a banking support manager.

Geoff Walton and Kathy Murphy Hunter have been appointed support managers as the business continues with its ambitious growth strategy. Both Geoff and Kathy join Together from Lloyds Banking Group, where Geoff was previously associate relationship director, and Kathy was the commercial finance regional manager’s assistant.

They will all report to Andrew Charnley.

Andrew Charnley said: “I am delighted to welcome Sonia, Andrew, Geoff and Kathy to the team. They bring with them exceptional experience, knowledge, ambition and drive to help us deliver our aspirations to be the number one choice for corporate finance in this market.

“Their appointments clearly signal our intentions to grow the business even more in the near future and to support businesses and their advisers with lending solutions tailored to their needs and delivered in an efficient and timely manner.”

The team’s key areas of expansion are the North West, Midlands and London, focusing on attracting property investors, developers, entrepreneurs, individuals and companies seeking a non-bank-style lending approach.

Andrew Charnley added: “Our ethos is to be agile, personal, flexible and straightforward. With our expanded team we are now perfectly equipped to build on our already successful business, established as a leader in the industry through exceptional levels of service, understanding customers’ needs and adopting a thoroughly proactive attitude to build long-term quality relationships.”

The Together Group is one of the UK’s largest providers of bridging finance and prides itself on its common sense approach to lending. It has a current loan book of £3.47 billion with average monthly loan originations up 20.5% to £169.7 million in the three months to the end of March 2019 compared with the same period last year.