Foundation Home Loans announces significant increase in recruitment

21 January 2021

Foundation Home Loans, the intermediary-only specialist lender, has today (21st January 2021) announced a significant increase in recruitment expanding resources across its underwriting, new business and sales teams.

In January, seven new experienced underwriters have been employed, and over the past few months a number of new underwriting assistants, processing team members and completions staff have joined. Since September last year, Foundation’s new business team numbers have grown by 45%, with many staff remotely recruited and working across the UK, which has been advocated by Foundation since 2018.

Foundation’s sales team has also been boosted with a number of new starters and promotions for existing staff. In January the lender brought two new Internal BDMs (IBDMs) on board and a new sales support team member, while two IBDMs have been promoted to the role of Regional Account Managers (RAMs).

David Wheatley (London) and Patrick Ogrigri (South Central) have been promoted to RAMs and will be looking after intermediaries in those regions.

In January, Sarah Wade was also promoted to Head of Marketing, with responsibility for driving Foundation’s marketing in 2021 and beyond.

Foundation said the ongoing recruitment drive was designed to ensure it had the resources required to deal not only with an anticipated busy first quarter – specifically in ensuring cases complete before the end of the stamp duty holiday in March – but to allow it to meet its ambitious new business and lending targets in 2021 and beyond, and to provide a much smoother process for advisers and their clients.

The new recruitment means that, by the end of January, total headcount at Foundation will be up 17% versus the same point last year.

Earlier this month, Foundation announced a refresh of its entire range of specialist buy-to-let and residential products.

George Gee, Commercial Director at Foundation Home Loans, said:

“Ensuring we have all the resources required within the business in order to support our adviser partners, and to help us move forward as a lender, has been a key focus over the last few months, and we’ll continue to recruit and promote as required across all teams.

“The next couple of months will undoubtedly be busy from a completions perspective as we work to ensure as many cases as possible can complete before the stamp duty deadline, but we certainly don’t view this as a temporary arrangement.

“2020 was a highly successful year for Foundation and, as a result, our lending ambitions have grown for 2021. It’s why we’ve also increased the numbers and experience within our underwriting and sales team to support the ongoing demand that advisers are seeing in the specialist residential and buy-to-let sectors.

“We are also very pleased to announce the promotions of both David and Patrick as new Regional Account Managers. Each have developed incredibly strong levels of knowledge and experience working within Foundation as IBDMs and we believe they will be a huge asset, not just to our sales performance, but also to the advisers they’ll now be working with.

“In addition, we are delighted to announce the promotion of Sarah Wade, our new Head of Marketing, who with a wealth of specialist mortgage marketing experience will now be leading Foundation’s marketing.

“Overall, and even with the difficult circumstances brought about by the pandemic, Foundation has the resources and operation to support advisers and their clients, and we are constantly reviewing how we work to ensure the best possible service and experience for all who use us.”

For more information on Foundation Home Loans, please visit: www.foundationforintermediaries.co.uk