"My first few months will be deep immersion in the business, finding out what has made Together so successful."
- Andrew Taylor - Together
Together has announced the appointment of Andrew Taylor to the position of group lending director.
In the role, he 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 £8.5billion.
Andrew has over 35 years’ experience in financial services and began his career with Barclays in 1990. He then joined National Australia Bank, working with corporates and financial institutions, before moving to Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
Over the next eight years, he worked in large corporate and mid-corporate relationship lending before taking on a leadership role in RBS International, where he was head of financial institutions, based in Jersey.
He returned to London as head of leisure for the UK Corporate Bank, developing a cadre of specialised relationship managers and driving expansion in the sector.
In 2016, he moved into risk, including roles as head of credit for Business Banking and 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, Andrew will report to Dave Sutherland, the group’s chief operating officer.
The appointment comes after Mark Heyes was named as corporate sales director for Together earlier this week.
Andrew Taylor said: "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."
Dave Sutherland added: "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."
