Specialist lender SoMo has appointed Jamie Jolly as managing director as the business looks to build on its recent rebrand.

Veteran Jolly joins, in the newly-created role, from Manchester-based challenger bank Revverbank, where he was head of real estate.

He was previously head of the commercial specialist team at mortgage lender Together and had been with the business for nearly 15 years. Overall, Jolly has more than two decades of industry experience.

Last month, the bridging and property lender change its name from BridgeCrowd to SoMo, which it says stands for Social Money Limited.

The Manchester-based firm also said last month it has lent £132m since it was founded in 2012 as a peer-to-peer fintech lender. At the same time it added it had secured £300m for further lending from a range of backers including Deutsche Bank.

The peer-to-peer lending sector has seen a number of high profile failures recently, such as Lendy and Funding Secure collapsing into administration in 2019.

SoMo says Jolly will focus “on harnessing growth opportunities in specialist lending with market-leading products and working hand-in-hand with brokers to offer alternative solutions”.

SoMo chief executive Louis Alexander says Jolly’s “breadth of knowledge of the sector” and “focus on the personal touch” will “be invaluable as we look to grow in 2021″.

Jolly adds: “The last twelve months have been challenging for the industry, but I’m optimistic about the possibilities of 2021.”