Danny Power | Bridge Help

“I am the eternal optimist in life and always see the glass to be half full.” Anyone who can say that after the year we’ve just had must be a unique character – introducing Bridge Help’s business development manager Danny Power.

There are a number of unusual pillars to Manchester lad Danny. He has been married for over forty years, testimony to a level of commitment to the cause, endurance and negotiating ability Britain could well have done with more of when trying to leave the EU. For nearly as long he has dedicated his career to the financial services industry – apart from a couple of mysterious years we won’t delve into as sales manager for the rich and even richer at a luxury Swiss watch brand.

He is also something of a DJ, treating his neighbours to a socially distanced (and wet and wild) festive disco, and an astonishingly hard-working charity fundraiser, best known for cabaret shows and auctioneering events; for The Meningitis Research Foundation, The Christie in Manchester, Children with Heart Disorders, Maggie’s that supports patients with cancer and their families, and Help for Heroes. Danny’s last two shows before lock down raised over £40,000 for Maggie’s in Oldham. He has recently joined Rotary Club International to help in their worldwide charity work.

Committing to community – stalwart husband, veteran colleague, willing neighbour, charity worker – runs through Danny’s life. In November he was honoured with the Dukinfield and Stalybridge Rotary Local Community Heroes Award in recognition of his “dedication, passion and hard work during the Covid-19 pandemic”. The President of his local Rotary Club commended him, saying: “You have gone above and beyond to help people in your community in providing much needed entertainment in Carrbrook Village during the Covid 19 lockdown. As a result of your hard work they have received much needed support, which would not have been available to them otherwise.”

Danny didn’t start out in bridging. For many years he was a pensions consultant, arranging asset purchase loans for schemes, before moving on to offering commercial finance and bridging loans as a broker. One day he was asked to join a lender to present their offering to the broker market. “That was nearly twenty years ago, and I am still passionate about meeting the requirements of brokers and their clients with what Bridge Help offers,” he says. In that time he has helped shift the conversation from bridging lending being expensive, to it often being cheaper than a project that fails due to lack of finance. “It has taken a long time to educate introducers and consumers on that,” he says.

Some who have been in a sector for four decades may fairly consider it a bit much to switch to a new challenge late in the day. Not Danny. Less than two years ago he moved to Bridge Help, a new entrant to the bridging market that needed a profile. “It has certainly been an interesting task to make Bridge Help’s product range known among the many other new entrants in the market,” he says, praising the management team and board, who “have proved as flexible as only a small team can be in reacting to market requirements”.

Danny has been able to adapt to the challenges of building up a newer brand in part because he is so rooted in the sector, proof of the true value of relationship building beyond the superficial. “I love the fact that I am still regularly dealing with introducers I first worked with when I came into bridging, as well as creating new relationships. I have been lucky enough to work with some great people,” he says.

A team player (he’s played for county at both rugby union and football), Danny has managed to secure longevity in a fast-paced industry by keeping two plates spinning; competition and collaboration. He says: “There are some incredibly talented young relationship managers who have come into the field and I still feel able to compete and fight for business with any of them – even the ones I have helped into the business.”