Richard Rowntree has taken up the role of managing director at Paragon following the retirement of John Heron who had worked at the lender for 34 years.

Rowntree’s role will be to drive growth across the buy-to-let, second charge and residential mortgage markets.

He plans to increase the lender’s focus on portfolio landlords, which accounted for 89 per cent of the firm’s new lending during the last financial year.

Rowntree joins from the Bank of Ireland, where he was managing director of UK mortgages.

He previously held senior roles at Royal Bank of Scotland under its Williams & Glyn brand, Santander, Lloyds and Halifax.

In addition, Rowntree was chairman of the mortgage product board at UK Finance in 2019.

Rowntree says: “Paragon has carved out an exceptional reputation in the buy-to-let market over the past 25 years under John’s guidance and I am excited to be able to take that forward. 

“Buy-to-let is increasingly becoming the domain of the portfolio landlord and, with our experience of working with these customers, we are perfectly placed to meet their needs.”

“We have introduced a number of initiatives over the past year to improve intermediary and customer experience, such as the launch of the Intermediary Portal, and we will introduce further changes in 2020 to build on that.”

He adds: “The private rented sector is an important component of the UK’s housing market catering for a diverse range of renters and the introduction of buy-to-let finance has led to significant improvements in housing standards in that sector over the past 25 years. 

“Portfolio landlords have the greater propensity to purchase and it is this group that will increasingly add to the supply of decent homes in the PRS.”