Specialist lender Foundation Home Loans has hired Matt Blake (pictured) as its chief treasury officer.
In the role at Foundation Home Loans, Blake will lead the capital markets and treasury operations functions.
He joins from Pepper Money, where he was a treasurer for around two years, and before that, he spent 13 years at Together, most recently as the director of treasury.
Blake is currently a non-executive director of Yorkshire Housing, a role he has held for nearly four years, and a non-executive board member at MS Lending Group, which he has been for over a year. He has recently become a group treasury committee member at Riverside.
He will work alongside the executive committee of Foundation Home Loans, which includes George Gee, chief commercial officer, Kelly Pallister, chief operating officer, Nicola Townsend, chief risk officer and legal counsel, Chris Lomas, chief technology officer, and Noelle Doherty, CFO.
Foundation Home Loans secured a £1.25bn funding line in April and, earlier in the year, restructured into three separate brands: Buy to Let by Foundation, Residential by Foundation and Solutions by Foundation.
Pete Ball, CEO of Foundation Home Loans, said: “We have a clear direction of travel for the business and it’s vitally important we have the right people in the right roles driving us forward to meet our ambitious plans.
“This is a time of innovation for Foundation, and I’m confident we have a highly capable, experienced and dedicated team of people, both within the executive committee and the entire business, that are going to make a huge difference and contribution to the next stage in our evolution.”
Blake added: “I’m delighted to join the team at Foundation Home Loans at such an exciting time for the growth of the business. We have recently expanded the Treasury team with the recruitment of Steve Vance (capital markets director) and Adam Pallister (ALM, treasury operations director). Working with our supportive financing partners, we will seek to expand the product offering to our adviser partners and their borrower clients.”
Anna is currently the deputy editor for Mortgage Solutions and editor for Specialist Lending Solutions. She has worked as a journalist since 2019, having secured her Gold Standard NCTJ diploma from News Associates in a fast-track six-month course.
She started her career as a report at specialist publication The Insurance Insider covering a wide range of areas before joining Mortgage Solutions and Specialist Lending Solutions in 2021.
In her role, she helps put together and structure the news agenda for the day and writes up press releases, reports, interviews, analyses and exclusives across both titles. She also commissions blogs for Specialist Lending Solutions and hosts online masterclasses and in-person events across the business.
She has been shortlisted for three journalism awards, which include BIBA Journalist and Media Awards Scoop of Year Award in 2020, Headline Money Mortgage Journalist of the Year Award (B2B) in 2022 and 2023.
Prior to being a journalist, Anna worked in ecommerce across Snow + Rock, Cycle Surgery and Runners Need websites, and before that worked at specialist financial PR firm Rostrum.
In her spare time, Anna enjoys reading, seeing live music, and cooking for friends and family. When she gets a chance, she also enjoys hiking, skiing and indoor rock climbing.
