Orchard Funding Group appoints Gary Jennison as chairman

He will replace David Clark, who has decided to pursue other opportunities after serving the board since July 2015.

Jennison has 39 years of retail banking and financial services experience. Until February 2017, he served as the chief executive officer of European business operations at The Warranty Group, where he played an integral role in taking the business onto a growth platform of increasing revenue and profits.

He also held roles at non-standard mortgage lender Jerrold Holdings Limited, where he served as deputy CEO for two years. He joined Jerrold Holdings from Payzone, where he was the UK managing director for two and a half years. Prior to that, he was CEO of Secure Trust Bank and was a director of Arbuthnot Banking Group for four years.

Chief executive officer Ravi Takhar said: "I am very pleased to welcome Gary to the board. His knowledge of the financial sector, specifically within the specialist finance market, will undoubtedly provide invaluable contributions to the company, and we as a board look forward to working with him.

"I would like to thank David for his contributions to the board throughout his tenure and we wish him well going forward."

At 0910 BST, the shares were up 2.9% to 106p.