Taylor Little grew Neighbourhood Holdings from a small family office venture into one of Canada's largest alternative lenders, reaching approximately $800 million in AUM by 2025. The former British Columbia lawyer joined founder Alex Conconi in 2015, became CEO in 2018, and led the company to $2 billion in funded mortgage volume. The October 2025 acquisition of Fisgard Asset Management added a second balance sheet, a retail funding channel, and three decades of broker relationships. Neighbourhood Holdings has ranked on the Great Place to Work list every year since 2023.
Taylor Little was called to the bar in British Columbia in 2012 and joined Stikeman Elliott LLP, where he advised business clients and studied how experienced decision-makers operated. One of those clients, Alex Conconi, was building Neighbourhood Holdings. Little saw an opening and took it. "I always felt like I could be a leader of something, a decision-maker somewhere," Little says. "I started as a lawyer and worked with many different clients. I wanted to do what those business people did. They're the ones making the calls, so I started paying attention to the ones doing it well." He joined Neighbourhood Holdings in 2015 as part of the founding team and was appointed CEO in 2018, three years after arriving.
Taylor Little runs Neighbourhood Holdings on a delegation-heavy model built directly from his own experience as an employee. Managers who micromanaged never earned his best effort; those who defined outcomes and stepped back always did. That observation shaped the way he now leads. "I don't care how you do it, but here's what we need to get done," Little says. "We set the rules, provide a safety net, and then let the players on the field do what's best in the moment instead of telling them exactly how to move." He describes himself as a results-oriented leader. Staff operate within strong institutional guardrails, but day-to-day autonomy is high, and that balance is intentional at every level of the organisation.
Neighbourhood Holdings has appeared on the Great Place to Work list each year from 2023 through 2026, reaching No. 5 among Canadian companies with under 100 employees. Taylor Little points to three drivers: psychometric testing that removes bias before anyone is hired, a fully outcomes-focused culture where remote work and flexible hours are standard, and competitive fundamentals including pay, a strong vacation policy, and RRSP matching. Fifty percent of the leadership team are women, not by quota, but because the hiring process removes bias from the first step. "We hire the best people, and we promote the best people, period," Little says. Those three elements, taken together, produce a workplace where strong performers choose to stay and new talent actively seeks out the company.
Before signing the Fisgard deal, Little's team built a grid of specific complementary strengths and identified three that stood out clearly. Fisgard brought a second balance sheet and a broader credit box, widening the company's appeal across the broker market. Fisgard also operated on a retail investor funding model that Neighbourhood had never used, adding a capital channel the combined business had not previously accessed. Third, Fisgard carried 30 years of brand equity and an established broker network; brokers who had always submitted to Fisgard would now submit to Neighbourhood. The acquisition closed on October 17, 2025, and lifted combined AUM to approximately $800 million, making it the single largest growth step Neighbourhood Holdings had taken since its founding.
Neighbourhood Holdings reached $2 billion in funded mortgage volume in 2025 and now holds approximately $800 million in combined AUM with Fisgard. Little has set a clear near-term benchmark for the business. "We want to cross $1 billion in AUM within the next year or two, and we will," he says. "We've got a really good line of sight on [that goal]." The company operates as an alternative lender across Canada, positioned between prime and private lending. Since Little became CEO in 2018, Neighbourhood Holdings has grown every year without exception. The Fisgard acquisition was the largest single step in that trajectory, and Little expects the combined platform to reach the $1 billion AUM threshold ahead of the two-year mark.
Little sees a market still working through a prolonged correction rather than a quick reset. His assessment is measured and specific: Canada is roughly four and a half years into a downturn that is "more likely to tread the bottom for years than to swing sharply either way, for housing or the broader economy." He also sees generational turnover hitting both housing stock and the lending industry at the same time, with new operators, consolidations, and technology all arriving together. None of it shakes his position. "We're excited for it, we're ready for it," he says, noting that Neighbourhood Holdings is reinvesting now, specifically to be well-placed on the right side of conditions when the correction eventually runs its course.
Little marked Neighbourhood Holdings' 10th anniversary in November 2025, but his attention is on the years ahead rather than the milestone behind. His stated goal is to build a company that outlasts his direct involvement, one with enough depth in its people, culture, and processes that it does not depend on any single person to function well. "I've done my job well when it's no longer needed," he says. That standard shapes every hire, every system, and every decision he makes. "We used to say we're a business of a thousand separate improvements, and we'd done the first 100; now we've upgraded to the first 200. There's still plenty of road ahead to hit the rest." The 10-year mark is a reference point, not a destination.
Taylor Little: chief executive officer, Neighbourhood Holdings; called to the bar in British Columbia in 2012; practised law at Stikeman Elliott LLP; joined Neighbourhood Holdings in 2015 as part of the founding team under Alex Conconi; appointed CEO in 2018; led the company to $2 billion in funded mortgage volume and the October 2025 acquisition of Fisgard Asset Management.