David Kennedy, who has previously worked for Lloyds, Barclays, Shawbrook and Masthaven banks, has been appointed as the new chief operating officer (COO) for Redwood Bank.

Kennedy (pictured) said: “I met a lot of people during the interview process who championed these ideals, but also who didn’t take themselves too seriously. With these attitudes and values, anything can be achieved, and Redwood have these in bucketloads.”

Towards the end of last year, it was announced that Redwood Bank’s parent company, Redwood Financial Partners Ltd (RFPL), had signed Heads of Terms for the reverse takeover of R8 Capital Investments plc (R8), a company listed on the London Stock Exchange, in 2024. Kennedy is keen to be involved in these changes, planned for this year.

He said: “We will be building the flexibility of our proposition and strengthening the expertise of our people so that we can continue to be completely focused on supporting our brokers and customers, streamlining our processes and increasing the speed of approval and completions.

“There are a number of exciting technology and system upgrades in 2024, which will allow us to use our technology to support customers and brokers further, improve our engagement with third parties such as the land registry and valuers and, where it makes sense, increase straight- through processing, all while retaining a human touch throughout.

“Redwood has a strong foundation built upon its people, many who have been here from day one. This has led to a unique and widespread customer-centric culture in the Bank, which goes beyond catchy words on a page. Our teams in Redwood speak of customers by name, not a set of numbers on a spreadsheet.

“We review every loan application individually and work hard with our broker community to try and make every application work, providing customers with a credit-backed approval, often when other lenders don’t have the willingness to support.”

Gary Wilkinson, founder and CEO of Redwood Bank, added: “We are delighted to welcome David, who has joined at an important juncture and who will be a great addition to our leadership team. His attitude and commitment to our colleagues and customers will see him lead by example as our story continues.”