EXCLUSIVE: Rob Barnard to swap Pepper Money for Masthaven Bank

It is understood that Barnard is looking after new business, with Masthaven sales director Richard Deacon taking responsibility for bridging.

EXCLUSIVE: Rob Barnard to swap Pepper Money for Masthaven Bank

Rob Barnard is leaving Pepper Money to join fellow specialist lender Masthaven Bank.

It is understood that Barnard (pictured) will look after new business, with Masthaven sales director Richard Deacon taking responsibility for bridging.

Barnard has been Pepper Money’s sales director for the past two and a half years, while before that he was head of business development at Aldermore.

A Pepper Money spokesman said: "We can confirm that Rob Barnard will be leaving Pepper Money to take up a new external opportunity.

“Rob has been an excellent ambassador for Pepper and played an important role in educating brokers about how we can provide simple solutions for their interesting cases.

“He has also established a strong business development team who will continue to build on his work and support distributors and brokers in growing their business by writing more specialist mortgages.

“We thank Rob for his hard work and enthusiasm and wish him all the best in his new role."

Last week it was announced that Pepper Money chief executive Colin Snowdon will move into an advisory role at the firm in 2019.

Rob Jupp, chief executive of Brightstar, said: “While this is sad news for Pepper this is a strong appointment for Masthaven.

“It’s positive that a man of Rob’s experience is staying within the industry.”

Terry Pritchard, head of origination at Kuflink, said: “Obviously it’s a great appointment for Masthaven but could too many cooks spoil the broth?”

Masthaven’s team now includes chairman Peter Harrison, chief executive Andrew Bloom, managing director Jon Hall, director of credit and operations Alan Margolis, managing director of long-term lending Matt Andrews, managing director of short-term lending James Bloom and chief operating officer Simon Furnell.

Jon Hall, managing director at Masthaven, said:“Masthaven continues to invest in hiring the best senior talent as well as developing and training our people. Rob is a talented, experienced addition who will add significant strength in depth to our mortgages team.”

Matt Andrews, managing director of short term lending at Masthaven, said:“Rob Barnard has a wealth of experience in the mortgage market and will help Masthaven to deliver on our ambitious growth plans for the sector.

“Rob’s remit will include developing the existing relationships we have with our intermediary partners as well as strengthening our proposition and infrastructure to deliver on the Masthaven brand promise to our mortgage clients.

“He will also support the development and delivery of our product pipeline to provide more solutions to help our intermediaries meet the needs of their customers.”