The Intermediary – February 2026 - Flipbook - Page 68
In Profile.
Q&A
Marvin Onumonu speaks with Claire Van der Zant, CEO
of Novus Strategy, about horizonal digital integration and
the firm’s strategic direction following her appointment
W
hen Claire Van der Zant was
appointed CEO of Novus
Strategy in April 2025,
she joined the business
at a time of increasing
complexity across property and advisory markets.
With transactions becoming more layered and
decision-making more time critical, her focus has
been on strengthening Novus Strategy’s role as
a strategic partner to its clients, rather than a
generalist consultancy.
Her route into the role was anything but linear.
Having spent years in financial services and
payments – including leading growth for a legal
sector payments startup – she first encountered
Novus through founder Chris Williams.
Van der Zant says: “I was ready to step back
from the chaos, but I didn’t want something
safe or incremental. The conversations with
Chris made it clear that Novus had a genuinely
unique vantage point across the home buying
and selling infrastructure. The opportunity was
to take that and apply relentless focus to a single,
critical problem.”
Her first months in the role were about
combining that vantage point with a much sharper
definition of what Novus would – and would not
– do. Van der Zant adds: “When I joined, Novus
had this incredible expertise in home buying and
selling, but it hadn’t always had the sharpest
focus. The early priority was to be really clear and
build a clear education drive into the market.”
Evolving client needs
As property transactions grow more complex,
Novus Strategy’s advisory role has expanded
beyond traditional models of consultancy.
Rather than focusing solely on single
organisations or vertical systems, clients
increasingly require support that spans
structure and execution across the entire
transaction journey.
Van der Zant says: “Where we are now is what
we call the second phase of transformation. The
first phase was about everyone in the transaction
going on a digital maturity journey internally. Now
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The Intermediary | February 2026
the challenge is in the handoffs between actors
– the bits in between estate agency, broking,
lending, and conveyancing. That’s where the
friction lies.”
Those handoffs, she notes, are where brokers
most noticeably feel the pain. She adds: “If you
think about a broker’s daily experience, it’s
manual rekeying, a lack of clarity from lenders,
inconsistent requirements and decisioning, and
chasing information that sits somewhere else in
the chain. Brokers are fantastic at providing advice
and supporting customers; lenders can design
products. The problems sit in the communication
and data flow between them.”
This shift has reinforced the firm’s focus
on integrated thinking, helping clients align
commercial, operational, and digital considerations
throughout the transaction process.
She explains that the strategies that brought
success in the past will not necessarily drive
future growth. Traditionally, organisations have
focused narrowly on their own systems – like
core banking, origination platforms, and broker
customer relationship management systems
(CRMs). Now, she says, they need to broaden their
perspective and consider their role across the
entire transaction process.
Digital integration
A key element of this approach is Horizontal
Digital Integration (HDI). Novus Strategy uses HDI
as a strategic framework to connect systems and
stakeholders across a transaction.
Van der Zant says: “HDI isn’t a platform, it’s a
framework. It’s about how organisations integrate
and connect into the ecosystem so they can
deliver a simple, predictable, certain transaction
to customers. The technology exists – the problem
has never really been inside the individual
actors; it’s in the handoffs. HDI helps businesses
understand where the industry is going, what
the priorities are, and what the sequence is to
get there.”
For Van der Zant, the point is not to add yet
another system, but to make existing investments
work harder. She adds: “We’re not saying,
