In her new role, she will be responsible for a team of underwriters, overseeing the assessment of a variety of development transactions across the living sectors, including residential, care homes, retirement and PBSA.

Prior to this appointment, Sam was a senior credit manager for over two years.

Before joining the Octopus Real Estate team, she spent 16 years at Lloyds Banking Group, working in roles within the corporate and institutional debt team, business support unit, and relationship management teams across the group’s real estate and trading businesses.

Commenting on her new role, Sam said: “I’m really excited to be leading the credit team going forward and continuing to expand our development lending offering to help deliver much-needed sustainable properties across the UK.”

Andy Scott, head of development lending at Octopus Real Estate, added: “Sam is a huge asset to Octopus and I’m very pleased that she is now heading up our credit team.

“She has fantastic property lending experience and has a growth mindset that is focused on delivering great outcomes for our developers and introducers, through innovative and bespoke lending solutions across the living sectors.”

Pictured above (L-R): Part of Octopus Real Estate’s development lending team — Andy Scott, head of development lending; Sam Herod, head of credit; Nora Rebole, head of development portfolio; Nick White, head of origination