Somewhere in my head I have spidergrams for the rest of my life. As I look towards the future, I keep in mind what I want to achieve in each of the key areas of my life: my family, my company and myself. These areas are all interlinked because they are interdependent. I wouldn't be able to support my family without continuing to run a successful business; I wouldn't be able to run a successful business if I didn't take care of my health – mental and physical.

I am ambitious for my company, but I want to grow in the right way; in the smartest way. At the time of writing, as I have mentioned before, I have just taken the business through a major rebrand, and we have been renamed “Dynamo.” I know this was a challenging transition for some of my team, and perhaps some of our lenders and customers, but I felt it went smoothly and was an overall success. I believe it was absolutely necessary for us to stay competitive and ahead of the curve.

Evolution is natural and necessary, in every area of our lives, but especially in business. You cannot survive if you don't evolve, because you will be overtaken by the competition. I often think of growing my company as being like building an Iron Man. It's not just about making something bigger; it's about making it faster and more efficient; more powerful. At the end of the day, every company needs to increase its profit margins if it wants to stay ahead of the curve and be a viable business, and that means moving with the times.

At one point in my business journey, my main focus was putting bums on seats; success was, in my eyes, largely dependent on the number of sales consultants we had. Now, I still want to grow in terms of manpower, but I put equal focus on honing our capabilities in a digital world.

I am proud and excited to watch the company evolve into a competitive fintech company. (Fintech is simply short for “financial technology” and refers to any software and hardware that contribute to digitizing the systems that drive financial products.) We are trying to automate as much as possible, in order to make processes faster, but we still need a human element. I don't believe that financial products, especially mortgages, could ever be fully automated and digitized because there are too many idiosyncrasies; every person is unique and every property is unique, so every case is unique.

We have witnessed almost every sector of industry get disrupted by digitization and increasing globalization. You have to move quicker than ever to keep up with the competition, no matter what you are offering in business. In banking, we are seeing the rise of online banks such as Monzo and Starling giving the traditional high street banks stiff competition. The big high street banks have had to move very quickly to ensure that their online and app-based banking facilities are state-of-the-art to match. Most now are. This has massively improved convenience for customers.

Estate agents have also seen big changes with the arrival of companies like Purple Bricks, who have completely upended the old agency model, and even Zoopla and Right Move have caused massive changes in the way that people source properties to rent and buy. I would have welcomed a little of that technology when I was looking at 100 properties in 1997, before buying my first one!

Even though the mortgage sector is somewhat less susceptible to digitization – because of the complexity of human advice that is necessary for borrowing such huge sums of money – I'm sure it won't stay immune forever, and there are many administrative parts of the process that can be, and have been, automated. This is why I have put such a strong focus on improving our digital capabilities. We now have systems in place that can take the input of a client's data and swiftly work out the best rates, the best lenders, the best products, etc. Certain aspects of the mortgage application can be automated. Computer algorithms can narrow down the options, but I still don't believe a machine can fully qualify a person for a mortgage. That will always require some level of human interaction to help the client get the best possible outcomes.

But digitization can certainly help reduce the repetitive tasks. We now have a client portal, which speeds up processes for everyone. For example, clients can upload key documents online and receive updates on how their case is progressing. This frees up an advisor's time considerably and allows us to write more business at a lower cost. And the customer gets their mortgage offer faster.

At face value, it might sound like this automated process would leave the system more susceptible to fraud, but fintech actually increases security because it uses “open banking”; in other words, an API (application programming interface) enables a lender to connect to the applicant's bank account (as long as permission is granted) so they can see exactly how much the applicant earns and spends, thus calculating true affordability. This also removes the risk of fraud.

Ultimately, I think the biggest challenge to a more comprehensive digitization of the mortgage industry will be getting everyone to buy into it. To get it working most effectively and efficiently, everyone needs to be on board: the banks, the regulators, the lenders, the customers. So far, it's still early days. I believe we, as a company, are real leaders in this respect.

I am confident that, in my company, we are getting ourselves into the best position, in terms of having the infrastructure in place, the loyalty of the team and the trust from industry leaders. I feel we have the best chance of getting to that place where we are optimally automated – in other words, just the right amount of fintech in place to make the human team optimally efficient. I don't envisage replacing human beings, I just want to make them better and quicker so they can focus on the advising side and write more business; in other words, to maximize their potential.

My vision for the future of my company includes getting more investment in the business. Obviously, I foresee myself handing over the day-to-day reins at some point. I don't expect to be working the hours I'm working now for the next 20 years! One key goal when you build a company, for most people, is to get it to the point where you can step away a little and be less hands-on without losing business. I imagine I will be starting some kind of handover within the next four to five years. Someone else will sit in my seat and I'll take a more advisory role.

Once I can step back from my own business a little, I am looking forward to exploring other business ventures. I'd like to find other entrepreneurs at the early stages of their business dreams, people who have dreams like I once did. I'd like to help them and advise them. I'd love to play a role like the dragons in Dragons' Den so that I could invest in more businesses. I hope I can apply and pass on my expertise and experience to help them grow. I would like to be able to use my funds to help them realize their dreams. In the process, I'd be getting the upside of their work in the profits I'd make from my investment.

I'm excited to see where life will take me!