Profile - Neil Patterson

With a family history going back to my Grandfather of working for Barclays Bank and an interest in economics, business and finance from an early age I suppose it was inevitable that I spent my young impressionable party years at Barclays. I joined the Bank in 1990 when interest rates reached 15% and found it was a fantastic place to build experience moving from department to department resulting in finding my passion for selling mortgages face to face.

In 1999, via my cricket team contacts, I was taken on by The Chelsea Building Society to head up and drive mortgage sales for the planned opening of a new branch in Norwich City Centre. Hopefully more by judgement than luck I ended up managing the branch and with a dual role of Business Development Manager for the region built a relationship with The Money Centre as one of their Lenders. The lure and attraction to join such a successful and fast growing company combined with the ability to build my own business advising on an area I was passionate about was too much. I took the plunge from being a corporate employee to a self employed Associate of The Money Centre over a curry (chicken patia) with Mark and Mike in 2003.

Success in the sales role, and passing the FPC (Financial Planning Certificate) qualifications led to a deeper interest and a wish to be more involved in the business. In November 2005 I took a leap not taken by a sales person before within the company and accepted an employed role. I utilised my sales experience along with coaching and management skills learnt at the Chelsea to help drive the business forward with its expansion plans. Teaming up with some very talented IT programmers I took on the responsibility for final design and roll out of our own unique buy to let search and quote engine. I have also managed our Quality Control, Training, Project Management and Sales Support teams ending up as Head of Operations to complete my transformation from poacher to game keeper. A good friend of mine, who is a management trainer, told me that you will never learn as much as when in adversity and after the last couple of years certainly feel that I have packed my locker full of learning experiences. My skills lay in an understanding of all aspects of the business, a drive to make things happen and my passion for building relationships with a belief in what we offer our customers.