Edwards has been with Accord Mortgages for just over two years, and before that worked as the national account manager for Together for nearly three years.
Before that she worked as a business development manager at Virgin Money for just over a year, and has also held roles at Direct Mortgages, BFL Mortgage Services and Connells Group.
Edwards will be one of three national account managers, which includes Luke Christodoulides, who has been with Natwest for 17 years and took on the role of head of corporate accounts.
Natwest is currently in the process of interviewing candidates for the third national account manager role.
The national account managers will report alongside Mark Bullard, head of intermediary sales at Natwest Group, to Natwest’s distribution director Gary Sutherland.
They will look after senior networks and mortgage club relationships across the UK, and also explore growth opportunities.
Speaking to Mortgage Solutions, Christodoulides said one of the national account managers will focus on new build and first-time buyers, and one will oversee buy-to-let.
Christodoulides added: “They will help drive the pace of change for us as a lender, so they will look towards market growth opportunities, service opportunities and looking towards specialist segments.”
He added “As we drive ourselves forward in terms if looking towards growth we absolutely want to listen to the broker market and these three individuals can liaise between looking at the opportunities, looking towards what the market wants us to deliver and making sure our development teams work through and progress those changes.”
The lender has also changed its structure so that three regional sales managers will also actively manage some of the lender’s network relationships. This includes relationships with key firms and companies that operate in their respective regional areas.
This includes Paula Dillin, who covers East Anglia, London and South Coast, Lisa Norgate, who manages Natwest’s middle England and North West business, and Helen Rudd, who manages Northern Ireland, Scotland and Northeast England business.
Bullard said that they would be the “face for some of our networks and principals”.
He added: “From a leadership perspective we want to elevate them into some of those relationships…it is the next stage for them in terms of their development.”
Opportunities in the market
Christodoulides noted that one key opportunity coming up in the market was the end of Help to Buy, which is due to end in 2023. He added Natwest was currently examining what it should do as a lender in that segment.
Bullard said the lender was also looking at its affluent proposition, which focuses on policy change and service, as it wanted to continue to grow in that space.
He explained: “They expect a different service, they have a slightly different makeup and need. The underwriting of that type of deal is different from what I would deem a vanilla case.”
Buy to let is also an area of focus for Natwest, with Christodoulides noting that it had made some key changes to its offering last year and “wanted to continue our growth on that front”.
Christodoulides said: “We have seen phenomenal growth as a lender over the last few years in terms of what we have done. It is good that we still feel there is more opportunity for us. We want to listen to the market and look at where the opportunities lie and do more of what we are good at.”
Transformational work
Christodoulides said the company was doing some “transformational work” on the broker journey, such as the APIs and case management systems.
He said: “We will link into those networks [into those case management systems] and make sure it is relevant to what they need. A large new build firm, a large network such as Connells or a small brokerage all have very different models. You have to make sure that you can cater for all.”
Christodoulides added that “every single aspect of the journey was going through a transformation”, including how to submit a case, update progress, how it examined income and expenditure.
Bullard said: “We want to improve that visibility for the broker to understand where their case sits within that journey and enhance a tracker that enables them to do that.”
He said this would save the broker time as they could more easily check the progress of a case and if they did need to call the lender, they would be informed and could move forward faster.
