Guest Rachael Hunnisett, director of mortgage distribution at April Mortgages, said she had a “reasonably unstable upbringing” as, six weeks after she was born, her parents were arrested for drug smuggling between the UK and French border. Her parents were imprisoned, and Hunnisett was put into the care of a French hospital.
When Hunnisett was around 6-8 months old, her mother was released from prison and they returned to the UK. Her dad later followed when Hunnisett was around two years old.
Although she continued to grow up in a “chaotic environment”, Hunnisett said there were many things she was grateful for.
She went to two good primary schools and owed much who she was to that, but soon discovered secondary school was not for her. At age 12, she dropped out of school and had “no intention of ever going back”.
Hunnisett said she “became a social recluse by this point”, did not see a lot of daylight for around two years and had “severe social anxiety”.
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When she was 14, her family had to flee the area they were living in due to gang trouble, giving Hunnisett the chance to “reinvent” herself.
“I got to decide how to present to the world. At the age of 14, I remember really thinking long and hard around that,” she added.
She went to work at a horse stable, at first for free and later this turned into a paid role. Hunnisett planned to make a career out of this work, and it was here she realised she was also “obsessed with money and numbers”.
By the time she was 16, Hunnisett had five jobs, which felt like she was getting a “huge amount of money”.
However, her favourite horse died, leading Hunnisett to leave the equestrian sector. She then met a property entrepreneur and offered to work for him for free.
After getting “stood up” for a mortgage administrator role, Hunnisett decided to undertake the CeMAP herself, but not before calling around firms and asking if there would be a job opportunity if she gained the qualification. After being told there would be a vacancy, that was when she started working as a broker.
The chance to progress and excel
Host Bharat Sagar, ambassador at large at AE3 Media, asked guest John Cupis, managing director of Dynamo and Mortgage Intelligence, what Hunnisett’s background and career progression said about the mortgage sector.
Cupis said it must have been difficult for Hunnisett to share this and said the fact she had got to where she was in her career “says a lot about who we are and how we can encourage and help people in this industry”.
Cupis asked Hunnisett if her “risky upbringing” shaped her life and the decisions she took.
Hunnisett said her attitude was “when you have had nothing, you’re not scared of nothing”, and as she had been homeless a few times in her life, her “driver for having a home was really large”.
She said she also did not have the same fear of failure as others might.
Taking risks and facing challenges
Cupis said moving from a “safe employer” like NatWest was a big move and a risk he had also taken in his career.
He said it was “still a relatively low risk move” as he joined L&G, an equally big company, but it did happen as he was moving home, was recently married and had his first child. His dad had also just passed, meaning “there was a lot of personal trauma” during this period.
“It was a personal decision around what I wanted to do for myself and having the self-confidence to understand only you can make the next move in your career and understand where you want to go next,” he added.
When at L&G, the part of the business he worked in closed, and “external forces” meant he had to find a job within six months, or he would be “on his ear”.
This was when he moved from L&G Bank to L&G Mortgage Club.
“It was difficult, but the move from lending to distribution was one of the best things I ever did,” he added.
