How many brokers and broker firms do you cover in your role?
Primarily my role is to deal centrally with strategic partnerships at corporate account level. Geographically this is a national role and I currently manage eight national key accounts.
How do you successfully organise and deal with business on a daily basis?
That’s easy, I am very organised and one of life’s planners so account meetings are generally scheduled at agreed intervals a year in advance! My life, even down to travel time, is planned in Outlook!
What issues come up time and time again?
I don’t believe in issues, just opportunities.
What do you wish brokers understood about your job?
That I am unofficially a technophobe. Thankfully there are some amazing, technical minded and very patient people within Mortgage Brain.
What do you think is the most important attribute in a good BDM?
Two things – honesty and reliability.
When you’re unavailable to contact via telephone, what’s the second-best way for brokers to get in touch?
Text message, they tend to be shorter than emails!
If you were head of the FCA for the day, what would you change about regulation in the mortgage industry?
I would reduce the time frame where either ESIS or KFI+ are offered post-MCD [Mortgage Credit Directive]. A far shorter period would help to remove all elements of confusion for both customers and intermediaries. #winwin
What was your motivation for choosing business development as a career?
I like to chat, and what better role to do and get paid for it.
How do you establish and maintain a good relationship with brokers?
Regular and frequent dialogue and understanding the world through others’ eyes.
And how do you establish and maintain good relationships internally?
Involve people! Draw on others’ experience and expertise – that’s one of the many things I love about Mortgage Brain – it’s all about team effort. If that fails I find regular home baked goodies go down well!
What’s the strangest question you’ve ever been asked?
Not sure that would be printable!
And finally, what did you want to be growing up?
A social worker, which may be why I ended in account management!
