After more than 50 years in the banking and lending sector,
Bill Calder has been a cornerstone of Zagga’s success since the company began. Bill
is Zagga’s General Manager of Credit Risk, where his primary role is to work
with mortgage brokers, assessing loan requests and structuring loan offers for
their clients. Through Zagga’s model Bill’s role is unique and hands on, also
working across the needs of Zagga’s investor base and balancing the two sides
to work together on every loan investment. In this role he has spent the past decade
working with Zagga as it has grown into a trans-Tasman business with over $2
billion lent to date.
His career started in a much more modest way, though. Bill
grew up in Ashburton and was in the college and Mid-Canterbury rugby and
athletics teams, but not much of an academic at school. Luckily, he always had
a strong work ethic, great people skills and a willingness to learn on the job.
“I was kicked out of maths classes because I kept disrupting
the teacher,” he remembers with a laugh. “I remember when I was credit training
manager for Westpac, I was teaching accounting to bank managers, and I often
use to look back and think that my teacher would laugh at the prospect.”
After leaving school, Bill briefly worked for Farmers Group,
before an acquaintance offered him a job in the bank. He started the following
week and discovered he had a flair for helping people secure and understand
lending.
Bill worked for Westpac for 23 years through the 80s and 90s
in various credit and lending roles, including as the bank’s head of Credit Policy
and Control and a member of the bank’s Credit Top Team. Next, he set up a
finance consultancy business in Christchurch, then undertook a short-term contract
for Rabobank in Wellington, and later managed the (now defunct) finance arm of FMG
Insurance. In the early 2010s, he spent some time working in debt recovery for government
entity Crown Asset Management, based in Christchurch. By 2013, Bill was looking
for a new challenge to sink his teeth into.
“I had two job offers at the time,” he explains. “One from
Zagga and one from a bank. I thought, ‘At this stage of my career, do I want to
go back to that 9 to 5 subsistence life? Or do I want to try something new?’
Zagga’s mortgage-secured investing and lending model was so far off the beaten
track. I thought, ‘Let’s give it a go’.”
He remembers the first year, where he travelled to Auckland
fortnightly, working closely with Glenn Morris (now General Manager Operations)
to help establish the business.
“I’m really proud that we built Zagga from nothing and now
it’s a multimillion-dollar company across New Zealand and Australia,” he says.
“I look back at that time and wonder how we did it; it still amazes me.”
In those early days, it was a challenge trying to explain
the lending model to investors, who tended to be sceptical at first. Bill
admits he talked a few friends into trying it out so they could experience the process
and start spreading the word. Soon, word of mouth was driving investors and
borrowers to Zagga, and the company began to grow, slowly and steadily.
Now Zagga is thriving and the team has grown, Bill travels
less and spends more time on his favourite parts of his job. Getting a deal
through for an investor and a broker is “one of those big bits of satisfaction”
and he really enjoys collaborating with everyone else who works at Zagga: “The
team here are tremendous people to work with. They are friends as well as
colleagues.”
Bill also appreciates that his job allows him time to
achieve balance in his life. He takes the occasional walk during the day, has
time to pick up a guitar from his impressive collection or perhaps takes one of
his classic cars out for a drive. With
six adult children and step-children, plus 10 grandkids, he’s always busy – but
he has no plans to step back from his role at Zagga.
“I enjoy it – and why stop if you enjoy it?” Bill says. “It’s
been a fantastic ride and what we’ve achieved is amazing. It’s been a great 10
years, and hopefully the next 10 will be even better.”
