Just Mortgages has appointed Tara Catnott (pictured) as area director to strengthen its self-employed management team in the North.
Catnott, based in Sheffield, will coach and support self-employed advisers in the region and aims to expand her team with new recruits.
She has nearly 15 years of experience in financial services and a proven record of finding and developing broker talent.
Catnott started her career in admin and underwriting roles and later self-studied for her CeMAP qualification.
She began as a trainee adviser at William H Brown and progressed to senior mortgage adviser.
Catnott then joined Freedom 365 as mortgage sales manager before serving as head of sales at Echo Finance, where she helped grow the team from five employed advisers to 45 self-employed advisers.
Catnott said: “Joining Just Mortgages is a great opportunity for me to share my passion for coaching and developing advisers.
“Coming up as a self-starter with little experience, I know myself the obstacles many advisers face and understand the difficulties of the job.
“It gives me a strong perspective to help encourage new recruits and those looking to scale their businesses.
Catnott added: “Having prior experience running academies, inductions and training, it’s great to know that Just Mortgages has dedicated teams in place to cover all this and give advisers the support they need.
“I’ve been so impressed with my own induction and the willingness of every department to give my team their full support.
“I’ve never experienced anything like it before and it makes me really excited to get stuck in.”
Ben Allkins, head of mortgages and protection at Just Mortgages, said: “One of the biggest strengths of our self-employed structure is an experienced management team that has walked the walk as advisers.
“This is hugely valuable for our advisers as they look to launch and scale their own businesses.
“Adding Tara to the team with her wealth of experience is a fantastic way to strengthen that proposition.
“Her skills in recruitment will be a great advantage too as we continue to see strong demand for our self-employed proposition and look to grow the division to 500 advisers and beyond.”
