My alarm goes off…

…at around 6am on the days that I am travelling, but I get an extra 30 minutes if it is a home office day and that allows me to catch up on the football news overnight.

I cannot leave the house…

…without a cup of tea and porridge – I still have the same routine even if it is a 4am start.

However, making an early departure to anywhere is restricted by our train service, which doesn’t begin until after six in the morning.

I travel to work…

…by train and begin working as soon as I have secured a table, which luckily is most of the time, as I live at the end of the line.

I can only afford the luxury of driving on the odd occasion when I need a number of changes of clothes.

The main purpose of my job…

…is to bring together all those working in specialist property finance for the benefit of the customer, the intermediary and the lender community.

It’s a tall order but it works, and even solicitors are now seeing the benefits of membership.

I joined Fiba because I believe there are still huge challenges facing us both in the delivery of sustainable sources of finance to SMEs and also in raising the awareness of our customers about the choices they now have in finding the finance they need.

My typical day…

…does not exist, apart from the regularity of being on the train to London most mornings. On those days I am meeting both new and existing lender and professional partners, and dealing with industry issues as they arise.

One of my main preoccupations is looking ahead with industry colleagues and peers to plan for further regulation and compliance.

People may not know that I am responsible for…

…improving the position of 1.2 million SMEs across the UK through my role as a director of a lobbying group based in Westminster and that I regular attend meetings within the Houses of Parliament, particularly on improving access to finance.

A common misconception about my job is…

…that I know everybody – which is not true at all.

However, they say you meet 80,000 people in your lifetime and I have certainly exceeded that; sometimes it feels like I meet half that many in just one year.

My favourite work memory…

…is difficult to pin down to just one as there are too many to mention, but genuinely it is the thought that by my actions I have enabled someone to find the finance that otherwise they might never have found.

Of course, there have been many great occasions that we have as an industry, where the old adage that includes a line about playing hard is so true.

A perk of the job…

…is getting to meet so many great people and coming across somebody you last saw many years ago who is still in the industry. Like me, they might have changed in appearance, but our shared experience means there is so much to reminisce about and enjoy.

To unwind after work I like to…

…watch football, go and find some sun somewhere as often as I can, and see my grandchildren, who will very soon outnumber my children – and I have four of them. They keep me busy.

My role in five words is…

…get out and meet people.