Pipe up and solve problems

Tanya Elmaz has risen to the top of intermediary sales at Together—a long way from her early days managing a call centre. She advises people to get themselves noticed and go the extra mile, and tells Bridging & Commercial how she plans to help brokers identify opportunities in turbulent times

Words by simon watkins

“Some might say I am a bit of a rulebreaker,” says Tanya Elmaz, the recently appointed director of intermediary sales for commercial finance at Together. Rule-breaking might not seem like a positive characteristic for someone in finance, but Tanya does not mean it literally. Rather, she tends to step beyond rigid, preconceived solutions and come up with something different. It is a quality Tanya regards as key to her career success and a perfect fit for the bridging loan industry.

“I’m not an artistically creative person—I’m more analytical. If you put problem solving with analytics, around. Her manner is an unusual combination of confidence and occasional self-deprecation.

“I’ve never been afraid to be around a table with people and not completely understand every detail of what’s going on, but not be nervous to be there, to ask questions, and to allow my interest and passion for the bigger picture to drive what I’m doing,” she says.

Tanya is also someone who is not knocked back easily. Five years after she joined Bradford & Bingley, the financial crisis came and, soon after, Tanya and the company parted ways.

“I was with Bradford & Bingley for seven years and then I got given redundancy. That was when I got into bridging at Alternative Bridging Corporation.” it’s perfect for bridging and the way specialist lending works as a whole.

Tanya’s journey to her current role began with a business and finance degree, and a first job as a sales manager at Virgin Cosmetics. The switch to financial services came in 2004 when she took up a call centre manager position for Bradford & Bingley’s Mortgage Express business.

“Very quickly, I was driven to do more than my job description. I think that’s a bit of a theme for me—I like to look at what extra I can do.

“I developed the call centre into something more sales focused than it was and then I switched to the sales side. I approached the sales director and said, ‘I’d like to become your new BDM for central London; I think we’re missing a trick as a bank’ and she gave me the go-ahead.

Straight to the point

A call centre manager approaching a company director in this way may sound unlikely, but anyone who has spoken directly to Tanya would find it entirely credible and, as our discussion progresses, it quickly becomes clear that she is someone who likes to get to the point without pussyfooting

Tanya joined the lender as business development director. “It was really valuable because I got to learn how to assess a bridging case from cradle to grave,” she notes.

One year later, she was approached by Together to be its BDM for central London, and she jumped at the chance.

Big name move

“I felt like I’d exhausted my time at smaller lenders, and I wanted to implement what I had learned on a bigger scale. That was one thing that attracted me to Together.

“The other was how long the firm has been in business—50 years as a non-bank lender—and it is a massive name. Almost every conversation I had with other lenders would end up with them saying, ‘Together will do that’—it always came up as the solution provider. That matches my personality, because that’s the problem-solving attribute I was speaking about.

“As a salesperson, you want to work for a lender that says ‘yes’ as often as possible.”

Since joining Together in 2015, Tanya has performed almost every role in her channel—team leader, business development manager, a roving underwriter, head of intermediary sales and, of course, her latest position as director of intermediary sales for commercial finance, to which she was appointed in December 2022.

“I will be running the entire intermediary channel for our commercial business. Typically, Together transacts between £200m and £300m a month, so it’s quite a large operation,” she explains. Some 50% of that is what the commercial finance team will fund.

“We work specifically with brokers and our job is to service and educate them on product changes and new options but, at the same time, make sure the experience for their customers is as outstanding as it can be.”

Treasure below troubled seas

Tanya’s elevation comes as the mortgage industry itself faces potentially troubled waters. Brokers encountered a turbulent autumn with fast-changing mortgage rates and customers who as proof of being able to adapt have been perplexed, not to mention distressed, by the uncertainty. While rates may have settled, a recession still looms.

Difficult times are, of course, not welcome, but Tanya regards opportunities that are going to be present in 2023, because there are going to be plenty. An example of that might be a broker who hasn’t done a lot of bridging to date; perhaps they’re a broker who predominantly does BTL and first-charge mortgages.

“Bridging is a growth area and will be this year for various reasons. It could be customers wanting to acquire assets quickly to pick up opportunities where prices may be moving, or clients not wanting to fix at the moment.

“Bridging presents a different type of opportunity. If you’re not a bridging broker, you should pay attention to that whole market because there are lots of opportunities there. The same applies to second charges, as people may not want to remortgage the first charge on their BTL or residential property. If you are a broker that has not done much of that before, we want to help you spot those opportunities so that you can enhance your business and navigate successfully through 2023.”

Tanya has come a long way since her early days as a call centre manager, but her advice for those at the start of their career echoes her own early progression. “Pipe up,” she says. “It doesn’t matter what

Together’s history and her own personal skills and experience as proof of being able to adapt to the situation. This is reflected in her strategy for the year ahead, which she declares is “education”.

“The market that we’ll find ourselves in 2023 is a little bit of an unknown territory. However, I have been in the industry for almost 20 years and Together has been in this sector even longer— we have seen adversity before.”

“When I say educate, I mean support brokers in spotting job you start with. If you get into a company that you enjoy working for, that has the right values, that can respect you and invest in your progression and development, that is a good place to be,” she says. However, some of that responsibility lies with the person willing to work hard to get noticed. “Real progression doesn’t just land on your lap. Understand the business and the job that you’re doing, and think about how you can go the extra mile.”