Together hires execs from British Gas and Nationwide

Jackson and Hunt will be in the specialist lender’s retail team and will complete its retail board.

Together has hired Brian Jackson as operations director and John Hunt (pictured) as chief risk officer from British Gas and Nationwide.

Jackson and Hunt will be in the specialist lender’s retail team and will complete its retail board.

Together hired Peter Ball as a chief executive of the retail division at the beginning of the month from Harrods Bank.

Mike McTighe, chairman of Together, said: “Since creating our new corporate governance structure we’ve made a number of high-profile appointments to create a really dynamic executive team that will drive the business forward.

“Brian and John each bring with them a wealth of experience and knowledge in their areas of expertise, and we’re delighted to welcome them to Together as part of our formidable new leadership team.”

At British Gas Jackson was director of credit and collections, while before that he spent 18 years at MBNA and Bank of America.

Hunt spent six years in senior risk and compliance roles at Nationwide, where he redeveloped the company’s enterprise risk management framework, while before that he worked at Capital One and GMAC.

Jackson has experience of spanned collection, recovery and credit operations while Hunt has knowledge of compliance, corporate planning and commercial, unsecured and secured lending credit risk.

Jackson said: “The specialist lending industry is thriving and Together is at the forefront of that and growing at a rapid pace, so it’s an exciting time to join.

“The business has a really impressive history, having traded successfully for four decades, so there’s a very strong foundation in place and I’m looking forward to helping improve and enhance our operations as we move forward to the next phase of growth.”

Hunt said: “Together’s impressive financial position, strong product offering and robust market demand all contribute to its continuing growth, and the new brand, established last year, creates the ideal platform to build on the current success.

“I’m delighted to have accepted this new challenge and look forward to bringing my experience to bear as we continue to grow and evolve as a leading specialist financial services group.”

Together has a current loan book in excess of £1.7bn, with total new lending for the year ending 31 March 2016 reaching £971m.