In June 2023, Gareth Burkitt joined the Hexa management team and has already made a big impact with his wealth of knowledge and finance experience. Recently, our Co-Founder, Ben Davies, sat down with Gareth to discuss all things business finance as part of our new mini-series of articles focussing on finance products.
Although new to the Hexa team, Gareth and Ben have known each other for several years. In this article we get to find out a little bit more about our new Credit and Risk Manager and the experience he brings to the team.
Ben: “It’s great to have you join Hexa at such an important part of our growth as a business. Would you mind sharing some of your background and why you decided to join Hexa?
Gareth: “It’s lovely to be working with you again and to join the team. I’ve followed Hexa closely since you started, and now joining as part of the management team in a Credit & Risk portfolio role is really exciting. I’ve really enjoyed my first month getting to know the team, our funding partners and some of our key clients.
My previous roles have been predominantly in underwriting and data analysis, which are equally important parts in growing financial services businesses. The roles have enabled me to understand the front-end credit and risk process but also the back-end operational performance as well.”
Ben: “Your experience was certainly one of the reasons why we wanted to bring someone like you into our business. I’m guessing from your experience that you’ve seen firsthand the changes in the funding landscape in the UK, and how challenging it is for businesses to navigate.”
Gareth: “Absolutely, in my previous role I had a great deal of exposure to several types of business, across different sectors, all of which were looking at funding options to help their businesses grow. You often find businesses know they need funding but don’t always know the right product for them, or more importantly, how to access them.”
Ben: “Funnily enough Gareth, this is exactly why we set up Hexa Finance. We’ve witnessed first-hand these challenges when we worked at different lenders. The challenges were magnified during the pandemic when businesses were looking at the various government lending schemes on offer, but in many cases these products were not necessarily what those businesses needed at that time. Also, we saw the challenges for businesses that sat outside of the criteria required to access them.”
Gareth: “This was one of the attractions of joining Hexa to be honest with you. Our team have the funding knowledge, but also have access to a range of different finance products to support businesses.
Not only is the upfront underwriting assessment of our applications important, but so is the ongoing monitoring of our clients’ requirements, ensuring that we give them the right support time and time again.”
In such a short space of time, Gareth has already made a significant impact on our business. He will be working with us closely and sharing his product knowledge through our finance products blog series over thenext couple of months.
In the series, we will highlight some of the products and services we can provide directly or indirectly to our clients. Services such as outsourced services for equipment suppliers, and direct products such as asset finance, business loans, property finance and invoice finance.
If you have questions about the finance products we can offer, we’d love to hear from you!