United Trust Bank (UTB) has hired Ben Jenkinson (pictured) as its head of product and strategy in its property development division.
In the role as head of product and strategy, he will work with Adam Bovingdon, head of property development – United Trust Bank (UTB) and head of originations for property development.
Jenkinson will support the bank’s property development division as it “aims to maintain its strong growth by assisting even more housebuilders and developers across England and Wales in their endeavours to build the many thousands of new homes the UK needs”.
He joins from LDS Sales Guarantee for nearly three years, most recently as managing director, and before that he was at Homes England for over four years as senior investment manager and head of product development.
Prior to that, Jenkinson worked at Nationwide for nearly four years and before that spent a decade at Royal Bank of Scotland.
UTB has also hired Kayleigh Simpson as manager for property development in response to “greater demand for development funding seen since the start of the year”.
She was most recently associate director for Cynergy Bank for nearly three years and before that was portfolio manager at Mint Bridging for almost two years. She also held roles at Beech Holdings and RBS.
In her role in the property development division, she will be “assisting housebuilders operating across the North West of England with a range of development finance and developer exit solutions”.
Bovingdon said: “With the economy continuing to improve and demand for development finance growing stronger, we’re keen to provide housebuilders and developers with the products and service they need to seize opportunities and build their businesses.
“We have never been busier supporting projects in the North of England and Kayleigh will ensure we maintain our high levels of service to customers whilst continuing to build awareness of UTB amongst housebuilders operating in the North West.
“Ben’s extensive experience in creating innovative finance solutions will help us to create a suite of new products as we continue to evolve our proposition and service to meet the changing needs of housebuilders. The future is looking increasingly bright and UTB aims to be at the forefront of specialist development finance lenders as we encourage our customers to look ahead with renewed confidence and ambition.”
UTB reported gross new lending came to £1.79bn in 2023, which is a slight decrease from £1.9bn in 2022.
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.
