Startline’s Gary McLeod appointed to head of commercial

Gary McLeod has been appointed to the newly-created role of head of commercial at Startline Motor Finance.

One of the company’s earliest employees, being recruited as underwriting manager in 2013, he has risen through a number of positions as the company has expanded.

He said: “To provide some idea of the scale of Startline’s development, we had 10 employees when I first started here and now have almost 200. It’s been quite a journey.

“I began looking after our commercial and introducer functions in 2015 and essentially, the role has grown with the company. The new head of commercial position brings a number of increased responsibilities, including shaping our reporting information and how it is used, deciding how the commercial team should be structured and the individual responsibilities of each person, and developing new introducer relationships.

“Startline is continuing to grow at a pace and I’m looking forward to playing my part in supporting our future evolution.”

A graduate of Edinburgh Napier University, Gary worked for a number of motor finance companies before joining Startline including Lloyds UDT, GE Capital Woodchester and Fortis Lease. He also held a number of risk and relationship management positions for Lloyds Banking Group.     

Paul Burgess, CEO at Startline, said: “Gary has been an invaluable member of the Startline team since almost the very beginning and we are very pleased to see him move into this new position, which will make the most of his skills and support our future goals.”

Founded in 2013, Startline provides flexible solutions to around half of the top 50 franchise dealers and 70% of the top 50 independent car retailers measured by turnover, as well as accounting for more than 2% of the motor finance market by volume.