LHV Bank has appointed three lending directors – Lee Albino, George Chipperfield and Sadiq Patel – to strength its lending capabilities.
Albino will join LHV’s Manchester office as a lending director and was previously at Shawbrook Bank, where he spent over a decade as a business development manager (BDM) and regional development manager.
Prior to that, he was a payments manager at National Australia Group, and before that, he was a payments partner at Yorkshire Bank.
Chipperfield was most recently a senior associate at Cynergy Bank for around a year. Before that, he worked in credit support at Monument Bank. Prior to that, he worked at Metro Bank and LendInvest.
Patel has over 22 years of experience in banking, having held roles at Barclays, Clydesdale Bank and, most recently, Metro Bank.
Conor McDermott, director of SME lending at LHV Bank, said: “Riding the wave of our successful 2024, we believe this is the perfect time to bolster our SME lending division by welcoming Lee, George, and Sadiq to the team.
“These new appointments demonstrate LHV’s commitment to attracting leading industry talent and strengthen our aim of becoming a major provider of commercial real estate investment loans and trading loans to SMEs throughout the UK.”
LHV Bank entered the specialist buy-to-let (BTL) sector at the start of the year and doubled its loan book to £140m in under seven months in July.
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.
