ABOUT KENSINGTON

When it comes to specialist mortgages, there's not much we don't know.

With a 25-year heritage, Kensington has long been one of the UK's leading specialist mortgage lenders. We serve fast-growing segments such as the self-employed, those with multiple incomes and the over 55s - people the high street is not always set up to cater for.

We make specialist mortgages, special

When you've been around for as long as we have, you soon learn that putting people into neat little boxes is an approach that doesn't work.

We prefer to look beneath the surface and go deeper than the mainstream lenders where all too often the 'computer says no'. Our mantra is to look for ways to say yes, so that we can help as many people as possible get the mortgages they need.

DATA AND ANALYTICS ARE
EMBEDDED IN OUR DNA

All Kensington mortgages are powered by VECTOR, our proprietary and hugely powerful analytical model that is embedded into all phases of the mortgage lifecycle.

VECTOR is supported by a unique dataset comprising over 400k mortgage accounts spanning all UK geographies, housing types, mortgage types and credit loan parameters for the last 20 years, and has driven the development of a number of in-house analytical tools and reporting capabilities that are key to the unique way in which we assess and manage mortgage credit risk.

Vector logo

FINANCIAL STRENGTH AND SCALE

With assets under management of over £11 billion, Kensington is one of the UK's leading non-bank specialist mortgage lenders, including servicing of c£5.5 billion assets for third parties.

We originated c£1.5 billion of new mortgages in 2019 representing a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of more than 25% over the last 4 years.

We are one of the largest issuers of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) in the UK having sponsored 21 securitisations totalling over £11.5 billion since 2015.

annual growth stat
We originated c£1.5 billion of new mortgages in 2019.

A formidable team

The Kensington senior management team, with an average of more than 20 years’ experience in their field, bring extensive industry experience and knowledge to the business.

Their expertise encompasses building, acquiring, running and managing successful businesses having forged their careers at some of the premier players in the European and US mortgage space, including Nationwide, Deutsche Bank, RBS, GE and Barclays. 

Guy Allen
Chief Information Officer
Mark Arnold
Chief Executive Officer
Allison Buckley
Operations Director
Kirstie Caneparo
Compliance Director & MLRO Compliance
Richard Cull
General Counsel
Vicki Harris
Chief Commercial Officer
Alex Maddox
Capital Market & Digital Director
Amir Mehr
Portfolio Strategy, Credit and Analytics Director
Kieran Mulligan
Chief Risk Officer
Richard Nightingale
HR Director
Marc Page
Chief Financial Officer

Guy Allen

Chief Information Officer

Guy joined Kensington as Head of Data in 2019. Since joining, he has expanded his remit to cover Digital and Technology, culminating in his current role as CIO responsible for all Digital, Technology and Data services.

During his time with Kensington, Guy has driven the adoption of cloud native technologies and championed the use of data within the organisation. Guy has over 20 years' experience in data and technology across several industry sectors.

Prior to joining Kensington, Guy was Head of Management Information at British Gas. Previously, Guy held data and analytics roles within British American Tobacco, Transport for London, Ricoh, Hewlett Packard and multiple telecommunication companies.

Mark Arnold

Chief Executive Officer

Mark joined Kensington as Group Chief Executive Officer in April 2018. Prior to taking up the position at Kensington, Mark was Executive in Residence at Centerbridge Partners, a private equity firm, with a focus on investments in the Financial Services Sector. He previously spent 18 years with GE Capital in a variety of senior management level roles, including Six Sigma Director for GE Consumer Finance UK, CEO positions at GE Money (Portugal and Romania), Budapest Bank (Hungary), GE Global Banking Asia and Bank of Ayudhya (Thailand).

In January 2013, Mark was appointed CEO of Sberbank Europe, responsible for the growth and development of their banking business across eight Central and Eastern European markets and served in this capacity until December 2014.

Allison Buckley

Operations Director

Ali joined Kensington Mortgage Company as Head of Lending Operations in March 2016. She is the lead on all aspects of mortgage lending operations, including underwriting. Since joining, Ali’s role has been extended to include Customer Servicing, Arrears Management, and more recently the Change Management and Project teams. Ali is now responsible for c.350 employees at Kensington and has over 20 years of experience working in the Financial Services sector.

Prior to joining Kensington Ali was the Director of Lending at Pepper UK, where she worked on the new lender proposition, and facilitated the process of getting them to new mortgage lender status in the UK. Ali worked for GE Capital in various credit and operational roles for 14 years, where she was responsible for multiple teams, comprising of c.250 staff across multiple locations. These included underwriting and processing of all new mortgage applications, Customer Services, Collections, Loss Mitigation, and Asset Management.

During 2019 and 2023 Ali studied for her MBA at Ashridge Hult College.

Kirstie Caneparo

Compliance Director & MLRO Compliance

Kirstie has more than 20 years’ experience in financial services regulation and compliance including 7 years at the Financial Services Authority supervising retail banks and insurers.

In 2006, she joined Aviva as Group Compliance Director, responsible for regulatory compliance across the group’s global insurance and asset management operations. In 2010, she became the Chief Risk Officer for Resolution Limited and oversaw the risk and compliance aspects of the acquisition of the UK life assurance businesses of AXA and BUPA and their integration with Friends Provident to create the Friends Life business.

Kirstie joined Kensington to lead its compliance and financial crime prevention teams in October 2016 and oversees compliance and financial crime advice to support business development and compliance with new regulatory requirements, monitoring of mortgage lending and servicing processes, PEP and Sanctions screening and fraud investigation.

Richard Cull

General Counsel
Richard joined Kensington in August 2018.  He qualified as a lawyer whilst working for Dechert LLP and then moved to GAM UK in 2005, latterly as General Counsel (UK and Continental Europe), assuming responsibility for the compliance, company secretarial and legal functions leading a team of legal, compliance and company secretarial professionals.

Vicki Harris

Chief Commercial Officer

Vicki joined Kensington in April 2018 and as Chief Commercial Officer is responsible for group strategy, product development and delivery, pricing, customer experience, brand and marketing.

Prior to joining Kensington, Vicki was Group Head of Strategy and Marketing at Aldermore, driving growth and product development across the Bank.  She was also heavily involved in the company’s IPO on the London Stock Exchange in 2015.

Vicki previously spent 11 years across a variety of roles in GE Capital and 4 years as a consultant at McKinsey.  She is also a qualified Chartered Accountant.

Alex Maddox

Capital Market & Digital Director

Alex Maddox is responsible for Capital Markets and Digital Strategy for Kensington. He and his team are responsible for all aspects of wholesale funding, interest rate risk management and treasury. Alex has been at Kensington since the change of ownership in 2015.

Prior to that he was Head of European Residential Mortgage Trading or Securitised Products at several investment banks and hedge funds including Deutsche Bank and Citadel Investment Group. He has a master’s in engineering from Oxford University.

Amir Mehr

Portfolio Strategy, Credit and Analytics Director

Amir has been working in the financial services industry across New York and London since 1992. Since 2015, he has worked for Kensington Mortgages as Credit and Analytics Director. Amir is responsible for credit risk and policy, asset management and portfolio strategy. He and his team are also responsible for developing and maintaining the various analytics tools used for funding, operations and portfolio acquisitions for the Group.

Prior to that, Amir's experience was primarily in fixed income capital markets with investment banks in New York and London where he worked as a managing director responsible for structuring of ABS/MBS. Amir received a BA in Accounting in 1992 from North Carolina State University. He also received his MBA from New York University Stern School of Business in 1999.

Kieran Mulligan

Chief Risk Officer

Kieran has 23 years of risk experience, with the last 17 being with Barclays Bank UK, becoming their CRO for Secured Lending in June 2022. His remit extended to Kensington Mortgages from June 2023, where he is responsible for risk management for the whole business.

His previous roles have included Head of Risk Oversight for Barclays Europe, where he coordinated retail credit risk management across the European portfolios, the deployment of best practices and compliance with internal policies. He has also led the Consumer Lending credit risk team for Barclays UK, with primary responsibility for the development and maintenance of the credit originations strategy for the unsecured personal loan product, a role he held for 7 years.

Kieran started his career with Halifax, subsequently HBOS, where he held a number of roles in the credit risk team.

Richard Nightingale

HR Director

Richard joined Kensington as HR Director in 2014 and is responsible for recruitment, development, reward, engagement and organisation design and culture.

Prior to joining Kensington, Richard was the UK HR Director for Sun Life Financial of Canada. Previously, Richard held HR Director roles with Investec Bank, Marlborough Stirling and WSP.

Marc Page

Chief Financial Officer

Marc started his role as Kensington CFO in May 2023 and is a member of Kensington Board. He is also a non-executive Director of Clydesdale Financial Services, having previously held the CFO position.

Marc has worked in financial services for 20 years with roles covering distribution, strategy and product management in HBOS and Lloyds Banking Group. He successfully led mortgage pricing for the enlarged LBG brands including integration and customer management. Marc joined finance in 2014 before joining Barclays UK as Financial Controller in 2017. Marc established a group wide impairment team covering all business lines and was a key member of the COVID response team working with the Bank of England and other lenders through the crisis. More recently, Marc has led CFO business lead teams in BUK covering all product and customer activities.

FROM our CONTENT HUB

Our trophy cabinet

MF22 multiWIN-onlinemrtprv
MF2020multiWIN
Best specialist lender award for 2023
ym2020
Personal Finance Awards Best Intermediary Lender

EMAIL US

You can email us by clicking on the relevant link below.

  • email-action-add Email Recruitment
  • email-action-add Email Complaints
  • email-action-add Email Media Enquiries