Together hires banking executive as group lending director

Together has appointed Andrew Taylor (pictured above) as group lending director.

Andrew, who has more than 35 years’ experience in financial services, will chair the group’s credit committee and take responsibility for residential and commercial underwriting, securities, valuations and development funding.

He will also lead on automation initiatives, designed to drive Together’s business forward and grow the group’s loan book, which currently stands at £8.5bn.

Andrew commented: “It’s not often that you find a business with such ambitious growth plans as Together and the group’s ethos fits well with the skills I’ve built up throughout my career.

“It is a small enough organisation to respond with the nimbleness needed to react quickly to changing markets, where customers, brokers and business partners have access to decision makers.

“However, the business has strong funding lines, a diverse product set and a large appetite to provide the finance needed to meet people’s property ambitions across the UK.

“My first few months will be deep immersion in the business, finding out what has made Together so successful and what is going to help the business to the next phase of its growth journey.”

Andrew has held roles at Barclays, where he began his career, as well as National Australia Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland.

In 2016 he became head of credit for business banking at UK Corporate Bank where he oversaw a transformation of the bank’s SME lending approach.

Andrew later took on the role of head of risk, credit deployment and decisioning with responsibility for all non-automated underwriting decisions across retail banking and all high net worth lending within the bank’s wealth business, Coutts & Co.

At Together he will report to Dave Sutherland, the group’s COO.

Dave said: “Andrew’s experience speaks for itself; he’s held senior positions in the banking world and has vast knowledge of credit and risk, has built high-performing teams to deliver large scale transformation, and has worked in customer-facing roles structuring and delivering complex lending solutions.

“His background will hugely benefit Together as we continue our own transformation journey and we are delighted to welcome him into the business as a valued member of the team.”