Kensington Mortgages has announced the retirement of Craig McKinlay, its current head of new business.

McKinlay (pictured) will step down from his role this month after five years of service at Kensington and nearly 20 years within financial services.

McKinlay has held several senior positions over the years at Aviva, RAC, Homeserve, Lloyds Banking Group and Kensington Mortgages. He joined Kensington in 2017 as sales & marketing director and since then has helped the company grow originations from £900 million to over £2 billion.

Prior to Kensington, McKinlay was commercial and channels director at Lloyds Banking Group, with responsibility for analytics, pricing, customer experience, business development and channel engagement across retail and commercial banking. McKinlay was also mortgage new business director, responsible for overseeing mortgage sales across Lloyds Banking Group, until April 2016.

Vicki Harris, chief commercial officer, will be extending her responsibilities to oversee the sales team.

Mark Arnold, CEO of Kensington Mortgages, said: “Craig has been an invaluable and key member of Kensington Mortgages over his five years of service. He’s grown our new originations business exponentially by driving our broker engagement and working closely with the rest of the Kensington team to deliver our market-leading product and service innovation. We want to thank Craig for all his hard work over the years, wish him the very best in the future, and to enjoy his well-deserved retirement.”

McKinlay added: “I have really enjoyed the last five years at Kensington. Under Mark’s leadership we have transformed both Kensington Mortgages and the specialist lending sector. I leave a fantastic team behind me who will take the business to even greater heights and continue to build our approach of customer facing innovation. Finally, I would like to thank the mortgage brokers and national accounts who have been so critical to our success.”