For this month’s ‘In Focus‘ series, we asked experts from across the mortgage and property sector to share their thoughts on the following question: “What does strong leadership look like in today’s mortgage and property sector, and how can mortgage brokers and advisers build teams that deliver better client outcomes?”
From adviser development and collaboration to communication, culture, and client relationships, industry professionals discuss how leadership is evolving across the sector and the practical steps that can be taken to build stronger, more resilient businesses.
Zara Bray, distribution director for the Mortgage & Protection Network at Quilter Financial Planning:
“One of the defining challenges for the sector is the shrinking adviser population at a time when demand for advice remains high, particularly with a significant volume of refinancing still to come. Strong leaders are responding by taking a long-term view on talent, investing in training, funding qualifications, and giving individuals a clear route into the profession.
Increasingly, that development should not stop at mortgages. The most effective businesses are helping advisers broaden their skill sets, creating opportunities to move into areas such as protection and wealth advice. This supports career progression and retention, while also improving client outcomes as advisers can take a more holistic view of customers’ financial positions.
At the same time, leaders need to embrace technology and automation to improve efficiency and consistency. However, mortgage advice remains a people business. Clients still value reassurance, judgement and relationships, particularly in more complex or higher-value decisions, so technology should enhance rather than replace the adviser-client connection.
Ultimately, one of the best skills a leader can have is adaptability. Having a long-term core strategy that is partnered with a culture of resilience and adaptability allows leaders, and the people they lead, to handle change with confidence.”
Tony Hall, Head of Business Development at Saffron for Intermediaries, comments:
“Strong leadership in today’s mortgage and property sector is defined by clarity, adaptability and a relentless focus on client outcomes. In a market shaped by regulatory change, affordability pressures and rising expectations, effective leaders set a clear vision while remaining responsive to changing conditions. They build cultures rooted in trust, accountability and professionalism, ensuring teams understand both their commercial objectives and their responsibility to deliver fair, informed and suitable advice.
For mortgage brokers and advisers, building high-performing teams starts with putting the client at the centre of every decision. This means recruiting people with strong technical knowledge and emotional intelligence, then investing in ongoing training so they can respond confidently to evolving products, criteria and compliance requirements. Strong teams also rely on clear processes, shared standards and open communication, helping to reduce errors and improve consistency throughout the client journey.
Leaders should use data and feedback to identify where service can improve, whether that is response times, application quality or client understanding. Equally important is empowering colleagues to take ownership, collaborate effectively and escalate issues early where needed.
Ultimately, strong leadership is not just about driving growth. It is about building capable, confident teams that earn trust, support better decision-making, and consistently deliver positive outcomes for clients.”
Enzo Mora, CEO and founder of The Mortgage Brain, says:
“The strongest leaders can build trust, communicate well, create resilient teams to cope with market volatility and consistently deliver good outcomes for clients under pressure. Effective team meetings, regularly highlighting examples of success helps to reinforce standards and show others what good looks like, encouraging advisers to continually improve. This is crucial when teams are often working remotely as they can become siloed.
In the new build sector, customers and developers have high expectations around communication, speed and overall experience. We’re now using AI to create highly efficient and compliant processes. For example, AI reviews calls and monitors adherence to the process. This allows us to review a greater number of customer interactions overall, while enabling managers to focus their time on the calls that genuinely need attention or coaching.
Our business is moving faster and becoming more agile by implementing AI note-taking tools in sales and operational meetings to produce detailed actions and minutes. Alongside this, AI is supporting parts of the admin process, giving advisers more time to focus on listening to customers and delivering advice, rather than becoming consumed by manual compliance tasks. The key with both leadership and technology is ensuring they support advisers rather than replacing human judgment.”
Felicity Barnett, New Build & Affordable Housing Partnerships Manager, Mortgage Advice Bureau:
“Strong leadership in our industry is about getting back to basics: focus on the value of the lead and use nurture. All leads are buyers, they can all get a mortgage, it’s often a case of when. Leaders need to keep teams accountable and avoid cherry-picking, ensuring advisers are focused on delivering outcomes for every client.
Education is another key area. What does education look like? How do you enforce it, how do you meet learning styles, and how do you know brokers know what they know? Strong leaders create environments where learning is practical and measurable.
It’s also important to challenge unconscious bias. Just because a lender once let you down or made life difficult doesn’t mean you avoid them forever – we all continue to evolve and improve. Conversion is key: something as simple as reviewing lender spreads can show who is pushing advice boundaries and doing more for clients, versus who is staying safe with ‘vanilla’ cases.
Ultimately, creating a learning culture is critical. Teams need a safe environment to admit they don’t know the answer and ask for help, and the best way to achieve that is to demonstrate it from the top down.”
