Head of Lending in England

Rockbourne has been appointed to help appoint a Head of Lending to lead, scale, and institutionalise our clients' lending operations. This is a rare opportunity to join a high-growth, tech-enabled investment platform backed by significant family office and institutional capital, and to build a lending business that will scale significantly in the near term. Working directly with the CEO and non-exec leadership, you will take full ownership of the end-to-end lending lifecycle, drive origination and underwriting standards, and play a pivotal role in shaping one of the UK’s next-generation challenger lenders.

What’s in it for you?

• Impact: You will be responsible for the entire lending lifecycle – from origination and underwriting through execution, monitoring, and repayment – directly shaping the business' credit standards, loan book quality, investor confidence, and growth trajectory. You will protect and enhance a zero-default, zero-arrears track record while scaling AUM exponentially in the coming years.
• Culture: A dynamic, entrepreneurial, high-energy environment where you will operate with significant autonomy. Flat structure, tight-knit team, and clear accountability. Independence is essential – there is nowhere to hide, and excellent judgement is expected.
• Growth: The firm is entering a phase of accelerated expansion with increasing deal flow, institutional capital coming in, and a modern digitised lending platform being rolled out. You will help build the team, define processes, and position the platform to rival the UK’s specialist lenders. You will have the opportunity in the future to become part of the C‑Suite in the business.
• Autonomy: You will own lending end-to-end: underwriting, credit approval, structuring, monitoring, relationship management, and team development. Your decisions will shape the firm's identity, performance, and investor credibility.

The Role:

• Origination & Relationships: Build strong relationships with brokers and repeat borrowers. Increase deal flow and ensure rapid, high-quality execution. Represent the business externally with confidence and credibility. Lead all underwriting, diligence, credit approvals, and structuring. Maintain rigorous, judgment-led credit disciplines. Ensure the business continues to deliver on yield while maintaining zero defaults.
• Loan Execution: Oversee documentation, CPs, drawdowns, covenants, and loan monitoring. Ensure compliance with governance, investor expectations, and risk frameworks. Maintain a stable, high-performing loan book. Manage developments, construction milestones, extensions, arrears, and exits.
• Technology-Enabled Lending: Leverage the business's new digitised lending platform. Reduce manual processes and streamline workflows. Hands-on at first; build and mentor a high-performance team as AUM scales. Contribute to long-term platform design and process institutionalisation.
• Stakeholder Communication: Communicate clearly with investors, credit committee, internal teams, and external partners. Inspire confidence and uphold the business's reputation for disciplined, high-quality lending.

About You:

• 5+ years of real estate debt experience.
• Strong underwriting, credit analysis, and risk assessment skills.
• Understanding of bridging and development finance (or ability to get up to speed quickly).
• Strong knowledge of loan documentation, covenants, and real estate credit structures.
• Confident and articulate communicator—credible with brokers, borrowers, and investors.
• Judgement-led decision maker with backbone.
• Able to operate independently in a lean, fast-paced environment.

Salary & Package: Bonus: 50–100% of base (performance dependent)