Just Mortgages has bolstered its self-employed management team with the appointment of Nigel Smith to the role of area director for the Midlands.

In the new role, Smith (pictured) will support self-employed brokers in the region with their day-to-day operations and their future planning. In addition to coaching those making the move from employed to self-employed, Smith will help those existing self-employed brokers to expand their skill sets and ultimately their own businesses. He will also work closely with brokers to access the ongoing training, compliance and marketing support offered by Just Mortgages.

Smith brings with him more than 17 years of experience from his tenure at Countrywide, starting out as a broker himself in 2006. As the region’s top-performing broker for three years in a row, Smith was promoted to sales manager in 2011 for Somerset and Bristol, before progressing to financial services director for the west and Wales division in 2018. In this role, Smith managed eight sales managers and more than 60 mortgage advisers based in estate agencies across the region.

The appointment adds further experience to the self-employed management team at Just Mortgages, which now stands at 21 members of staff. Smith becomes the fourteenth area director and joins recent arrival Stephen Swyny to support brokers in the Midlands region.

Smith said: “I’m delighted to be joining the team at Just Mortgages and taking on this challenge in its impressive self-employed division. A big passion of mine is using my skills and experience to coach brokers and help them grow their day-to-day business. The role presents a fantastic opportunity to do this and to join an ambitious and exciting brokerage.

“When I was a broker, it was very hard to transition into a self-employed role. However, Just Mortgages really has managed to bridge that gap with the fantastic support they provide. That support begins when brokers get started and continues with help maximising their business and their own potential. This is very appealing to brokers and for me too when joining the firm.”

Carl Parker, national director at Just Mortgages, added: “Expanding our management team continues our commitment to ensuring we provide all our self-employed brokers with the necessary support structure to make a real success of it. Having worked at Countrywide together, I know Nigel to be incredibly experienced and highly motivating. It’s great to see him join the team at Just Mortgages.

“We have made our ambitions clear that we want to grow the division to more than 1,000 advisers in the coming years. Expanding our management team, increasing our knowledge base and putting the necessary support structure in place is critical in achieving that. We’re fast approaching 500 self-employed brokers, which demonstrates the strength and success of our proposition.”