In an exclusive interview with B&C, Gareth discussed how he planned to utilise his professional experience to steer the firm’s growth, and why he feels the market should be more optimistic.

Announcing the new hire, Crystal CEO Jo Breeden said the appointment had come at a “crucial moment” in the specialist finance distributor’s journey and praised Gareth’s wealth of experience at Ocean Finance, where he served as CEO.

For Gareth, his experience in taking businesses to the next level is what he truly brings to the brokerage.

“I think one of the reasons that I'm here now is because I've gone through those growing pains before,” Gareth told B&C.

“One of the key cards I bring to the table is having gone through that process more than once.

“I think my expertise is in growing businesses, developing the resource that you've got, and all the things that go along with that,” he continued.

Despite moving from Ocean’s direct-to-consumer business over to Crystal and the world of specialist finance, he noted that the end consumer is ultimately key in both. While there was an adjustment period in getting to know brokers’ needs, service propositions were a continuum across markets, he said.

Though Gareth had already consulted for Crystal for some time prior to his directorship appointment, this hadn’t detracted from him bringing a fresh perspective to the company and a different way of finding solutions, while also bringing his own expertise.

“Where I specialise is pretty much around operations and sales, and I think that my strategy is really to drive those elements of the business,” he explained.

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Using this expertise, Gareth’s strategy for growth includes building Crystal’s scalability, with his first goal being to understand the customer journey and where the strengths and weaknesses in the business lie, drilling down into areas that need improvement and plugging those gaps.

“One of the first things I want to achieve is improvements in our conversion figures, because that gives me a sense of operational efficiency, efficient use of resource… that's where I'm focusing at the moment.”

For Gareth, strategising for this meant working from the front end, identifying what customers look like, how to reach them, and then building those relationships.

 “Then once we've got the business through the door, we can look at how we can best handle that and improve our offering for the brokers and our customers.”

Another aspect which Gareth brings to the role is an appreciation of the ups and downs of the market and the importance of consumer confidence.

He believed that while the market may be facing challenges, it’s nothing that hasn’t been seen before. However, overcoming those challenges may be undermined by lack of confidence.

“When it comes to things like development, BTL, and things like that, people need to have the confidence to take on new projects,” stated Gareth.

Despite a perceived lack of wider market confidence, Gareth still saw reasons to be positive: “Confidence is fairly low at the moment, let's make no bones about it, but there are some good things on the horizon.”

He noted attractiveness of UK investment, falling bank rates, as well as an appetite for removing some of the red tape around financial services products as being reasons for heightened sentiment.

He noted that a glass-half-empty attitude could bring its own set of problems. “I think that if people are overly pessimistic about the marketplace and where their business is positioned, that it's very easy to miss opportunity.”

While he acknowledged that he was fresh in the position, Gareth found space for optimism and to practice his own advice: “I think that as a business, Crystal is going to take advantage of where they sit in the market right now. There's a lot of good things going on… the future is bright.”