NACFB - Gala Dinner and AGM review

A few handfuls of Introducer Today readers will have joined us (and 750 others) at our 2016 Industry Awards ceremony on November 3rd, and/or at our AGM and Seminars at November 9th Finance Professional Show.  

However, if you weren’t among them, here is a taster of what you missed...

For the Gala Dinner we had three acrobatic acts, four comedians, a four-course dinner and no fewer than twelve Industry Awards to hand out including the new-for-this-year “Small Funder of the Year”.

The award winners were as follows:

Commercial Mortgage Lender of the Year: Lloyds Bank 

Leasing and Asset Finance Provider of the Year: Aldermore Bank

Short-term Lender of the Year: LendInvest 

Factor and Invoice Discounter of the Year: Bibby Financial Services 

Motor Vehicle Finance Provider of the Year: Hitachi Capital 

Most Supportive Lender of the Year: Aldermore Bank

Buy-to-Let Lender of the Year: Shawbrook Bank 

Specialist Lender of the Year:  Funding Circle

Most Innovative Lender of the Year: Shawbrook Bank

Development Finance Lender of the Year: Aldermore Bank

Small Funder of the Year: Armada Asset Finance

Business Bank of the Year: Lloyds Bank 

The principle change I made this year was to get the Awards under way immediately after the dinner, rather than waiting for a respectful hush to fall upon the crowd. We have also previously opted for a headline name comedian or speaker – Ronnie Corbett, Ian Hislop and Rory Bremner are among the famous acts who have graced our stage in the past – but this year’s decision to bring on some lesser names, and to hold them back until after the Awards had been presented, was broadly welcomed. Aaron James doing his usual excellent job of tying everything together. 

A number of small changes to our Constitution were up for debate at our Annual General Meeting, principally defining the structure of the Board of Directors. It’s not headline-grabbing stuff, but it does go to demonstrate how over nearly 25 years an environment can change fast and the nature of ruling over a union of brokers can become very different from what the NACFB’s “founding fathers” might have foreseen when they sat around a Bristol table in 1992.

It’s a situation which I imagine the American people can identify with right now... how did we get from there to here? 

A change at the top does not, fortunately, mean any change to the good work that’s being down by our members, Directors and Patrons, which is set to be ramped up yet again in 2017.

*Adam Tyler is chief executive of the NACFB