Interview
2020’S BEST PERFORMING BDM Over the course of the pandemic, we’ve continually heard about the handful of businesses which have thrived—the outliers that are somehow coming through the other side in a better position than they went in. Knowledge Bank is one of these, and its founder and CEO, Nicola Firth, never imagined a crisis being the reason for the business finding its true calling
We constantly write about the myriad frustrations and challenges felt in the market, and love to assemble opinions on what is going well, and the things we’d like to be done better—it’s pretty much the backbone of trade publishing. Rarely, however, do we see someone knuckle down and create the solution to a common issue and, in doing so, improve the sector as a whole. Knowledge Bank, set up in 2015, was Nicola’s answer to a lack of clarity and homogeneity for mortgage advisers when it came to product criteria. Her own background as a broker meant she often felt like she was “scrambling around in the dark” despite all the tools available, because they left out a crucial component: criteria. Her ambition was to replace the countless scattered spreadsheets that held this vital information and distil it in a bank of, well, knowledge.
12 Bridging & Commercial