In our latest ‘Five mins with…’ interview, we meet Nikki Guy. Nikki joined the Development Finance team as an operational credit manager and she explains why she enjoys her job and the London life. 

Nikki, can you tell us about your role as operational credit manager?

Well my role is a slightly hybrid role in that I am involved with the credit risk for Paragon Development Finance, involving reviewing applications and due diligence, and assisting with the ongoing management of facilities from a credit perspective. Additionally, I am involved in the IRB project – essentially working with teams across the bank to ensure that the PDF team has the appropriate rules and regulations to become IRB compliant, which will, in the long run, assist us with our capital weighting judgements due to risk understanding.

You’ve spent most of your career in financial services, what do you enjoy about the sector?

I really enjoy being involved in Development Finance specifically – being involved with schemes as they grow from a site into a completed development, providing more homes to an industry that is desperately in need of it.

You joined Paragon in the middle of a lockdown. How was that experience?

It was hard but luckily I had some great people welcoming me to the team and getting me acclimatised to the processes and procedures. Additionally, it helped that the onboarding process was so smooth – I was up and running by the end of my first day!

You’re originally from South Africa, what do you enjoy about living in London?

I’ve been in London for over eights years and I absolutely love the life of London. There are always people about and something to do. Its unbelievably multicultural – essentially a boiling pot of people from different backgrounds who are all in the same boat and working hard.

What do you enjoy outside of work?

I love travelling to new places, gardening and cooking up a meal for friends. I am also planning my wedding at the moment so we have been having fun tasting different foods and visiting different venues.

Connect with Nikki on LinkedIn.