Rick Hyland has joined crowd-funding business rebuildingsociety.com as business development manager for Yorkshire. He will be responsible for growing the company’s network among Yorkshire businesses and lenders. The Leeds-based firm announced that it had passed the £1 million borrowing milestone after a surge in interest from small and medium sized business borrowers and is targeting £20 million of borrowing by the end of 2014.

Mr Hyland has joined from recruitment agency Reed where he was a senior consultant.

Mr Hyland said: “I’ve spent the past five years helping businesses get the right staff, but I’m also a business owner myself, so I understand the frustrations that SMEs have with traditional finance.”