Specialist lending has been through a difficult few years, and leadership teams have had to deal with higher funding costs, changing borrower demand, pressure on margins and a different economic environment to the one many businesses were built in. As conditions change again, I expect we will see more firms looking closely at whether they have the senior skills they need for the next stage.
This is quite normal. A management team can have done a perfectly good job and the business can still reach a point where it needs something different. A new lending area might require experience the existing team does not have, shareholders may want to accelerate growth, distribution may need strengthening, an acquisition may need integrating or the priorities of the business may simply have changed.
There are plenty of ways of dealing with that before changing the senior team. Responsibilities can be moved around, somebody internally can be given a larger role, a NED can add useful experience or a senior contractor can be brought in for a specific piece of work. Contractors are particularly useful when a firm knows it has a problem to solve but isn't yet certain what the permanent structure should look like.
There are, however, times when boards and shareholders decide that a senior appointment or replacement is necessary. These are some of the most sensitive searches in recruitment, particularly in specialist lending and asset finance where the market is relatively small and senior people tend to know each other.
The concern clients often have is confidentiality. If somebody is still sitting in the role, understandably the firm does not want speculation circulating in the market while it considers its options.
Having worked on searches like this, my experience is that senior candidates generally understand the position very well. They have often managed sensitive situations themselves and know that a confidential conversation needs to remain confidential. NDAs can be appropriate where particularly sensitive information is going to be shared, although they are not always necessary and introducing them too early can sometimes make a conversation more difficult than it needs to be. Far more important is being very selective about who is approached and how much information is shared at each stage.
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Fram Search supports lenders, asset finance providers, challenger banks and debt advisory firms with recruitment across origination, sales, underwriting, credit, risk and leadership appointments.
Whether you are building a team, replacing a key hire or exploring the current talent market, contact us on 01525 864 372 or email [email protected].
This is also where knowing the specialist lending market properly matters. A confidential search cannot simply be put in front of a large number of people in the hope that somebody suitable emerges. You need to know who has actually done what the client needs, whether that is building a lending business, running credit, developing distribution, working with private equity, raising funding, managing through a difficult credit cycle or taking a firm into a new market.
It is also quite common for the original brief to change once those conversations begin. A client may initially think it needs a particular type of CEO or Managing Director and discover that the skills it wants sit somewhere slightly differently in the market. Sharing that intelligence early is useful because there is little point spending months looking for a combination of experience that either barely exists or would require compromises elsewhere.
The same applies to board appointments. Job titles only tell you so much. Someone may have impressive experience, but the more important question is whether that experience is relevant to what this particular business is trying to achieve and whether they will work effectively with its shareholders, CEO and existing management team.
I expect these conversations to become more common. Specialist lenders are looking for growth again in some areas, private equity remains active across financial services, technology is changing operating models and firms continue to look at new products and distribution channels. After several years when cost and efficiency have received considerable attention, the skills needed to take advantage of better conditions may not always be the same ones firms have needed to navigate the difficult period.
For Fram, confidential board and senior executive search is therefore less about having a list of senior people and more about understanding the situation before approaching anybody. In a small market, a poorly handled search can travel surprisingly quickly. A well handled one can give a board a proper view of its options without unnecessarily unsettling the business or the wider market.
That is ultimately what clients want from us in these situations: good market knowledge, sensible advice, access to the right people and discretion throughout the process.
About Fram Search
Established in 2010, Fram Search is a specialist financial services recruitment consultancy. We support asset finance providers, specialist lenders, challenger banks, debt advisory firms and wider debt & capital solutions businesses across the UK and internationally.
Our Asset Finance & Specialist Lending practice recruits across sales, origination, underwriting, credit, risk, collections, finance, operations and executive leadership functions. We work across asset finance, leasing, bridging finance, development finance, invoice finance and specialist lending, helping clients secure high-performing talent in revenue-generating and credit-critical roles. We provide both contingent recruitment and executive search services, combining deep market knowledge with extensive candidate networks.
Please contact us on 01525 864 372 / [email protected] to learn more.
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