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Job title: Chief executive officer, Instant Finance

Thirty years of history attracted Richard de Lautour, 53, to the top job at Instant Finance, a private company based in Ellerslie, Auckland.

"It's been around a long time and has been a leader in the personal lending sector of the market," he says.

The Instant Finance board was looking for someone, according to the "blind" advertisement (the company wasn't named), who could implement an "aggressive strategy" for growth of a "very successful and profitable enterprise".

De Lautour reckoned he still had the oats "to take on a challenge".

Instant Finance has nine branches between Whangarei and Hamilton and $39 million of loans out to 17,000 clients.

De Lautour, a former chairman of the Financial Services Federation, to which 33 local non-bank lenders belong, has spent most of his working life in the finance sector.

Born in Christchurch, he attended Otago Boys High School and entered the working world as a management trainee for the Colonial Motor Company, which owns many of the country's Ford dealerships.

He spent 10 years in the industry in the United Kingdom, spending most of that time with Ford in rental, leasing and finance.

On returning to New Zealand in 1982, he joined Allied Finance, then a two-person operation. Before its amalgamation with fellow Pyne Gould Corporation subsidiary Finance & Discounts in July 2000, Allied's loan portfolio had grown to $180 million.

After leaving the company in June last year, he did some consulting work and started at Instant Finance in mid-January.