After seven years of outstanding relationship support for a raft of our Real Estate Finance clients, last month saw Suzie Gooder promoted to Relationship Onboarding Specialist, with a focus on helping new borrowers. We caught up with Suzie to find out why she loves what she does.
With Suzie's vast amount of knowledge and experience, she'll be helping our clients through their due diligence, making the borrowing journey with us as smooth and seamless as possible. Talking of experience, Suzie's been in banking for over two decades now, starting out in retail banking and then moving to commercial banking ten years ago. From supporting customers through financial difficulties and distress, through to building relationships with new clientele, Suzie has seen and done it all.
It is this relationship building aspect that Suzie most enjoys. When speaking to her about her highlights, Suzie said: "I moved to Secure Trust Bank in 2015 because I enjoy the personal aspect of banking the most. Like many services, banking has become a lot more digital and automated, losing that factor of knowing why people want to borrow in the first place. At STB, we don't want to lose the personal touch, as it's part of who we are and is crucial to helping our borrowers.
"Lending is not just a form filling exercise - it is about relationships and rapport. My role includes asking borrowers about their background and story, all to get to know them better with a view to offering the most personal, tailored service we can. Having a strong understanding of our borrowers was part of the reason why we still performed well during COVID - yes there were some delays, but we found solutions to help our customers through challenging financial times."
Suzie goes on to explain how this degree of problem-solving, as well as seeing projects all the way from start to finish, and meeting all sorts of people is why she still loves commercial banking and real estate finance to this day: "Financing property investment is always exciting for me as you get to see how your involvement turns into actual buildings, peoples' homes and student accommodation for years and years to come. Along the way, I've met some high-profile people and really got to know them, and it always comes back to being personable and understanding their story. Just like during COVID, we're facing uncertain times again, and like years before, we'll be helping people get the finance they need, problem solving along the way, to help projects come to fruition."