News

British Business Bank appoints its first Chief Marketing Officer to head new Demand Development Unit

The British Business Bank has appointed Angelene Woodland as its first Chief Marketing Officer. The British Business Bank is the government-owned business development bank dedicated to making finance markets work better for smaller businesses.

The new role has been created to lead the Bank’s new Demand Development Unit. The new unit will build the profile of the Bank and its positioning and relationship with smaller businesses across the UK, to enable SMEs to seek the finance best suited to their needs.

Woodland joins from Bupa UK where, since 2011, she held a number of positions across Marketing and was Director of Marketing Communications, leading all Bupa UK’s brand, acquisition and retention marketing strategy across all customer segments and business lines. She was previously Bupa’s Director of Consumer Marketing and Sales. Prior to Bupa, she held senior roles at Shop Direct Group and the British School of Paris.

Keith Morgan, British Business Bank CEO, said:

“Angelene has a wealth of industry experience and I am delighted she is joining our organisation at this exciting stage in our development. I look forward to welcoming her to the British Business Bank in this newly-created role and working with her to ensure smaller businesses across the UK are encouraged and enabled to seek the finance best suited to their needs.”

Angelene Woodland said:

“I am delighted to be joining as Chief Marketing Officer and am excited to be working with an organisation that has such a strong purpose at its core – to make finance markets work more effectively for small businesses, so that they and the people they employ can prosper, grow and build UK economic activity. The creation of the new Demand Development Unit at the British Business Bank is testament to the focus being put on delivering a customer centred and compelling proposition to market, that meets the demands and needs of our customer segments. I cannot wait to drive forward the brand and customer engagement strategies with the team and to encourage and enable smaller businesses across the UK to seek the finance best suited to their needs.”

The Bank’s new Demand Development Unit will develop and maintain an integrated information service, supported and enabled by digital, direct and partner marketing, and events. The unit also encompasses a new UK Network team which will operate across the UK making connections between SMEs, the Bank and a range of public and private partners, identifying and helping address regional imbalances in access to finance.

The British Business Bank’s Finance Hub, a key part of the new Demand Development Unit, is a best-in-class digital information hub aimed at raising awareness of the finance options available to UK SMEs.
It is the source of independent information for growing businesses and offers guidance for scale-up, high growth and potential high growth businesses using interactive content.

ENDS

Further information

Scott Shearer
Senior Communications Manager
0203 772 1351 / 07770 704 761
Scott.Shearer@british-business-bank.co.uk

Mary Whenman
Director, Communications & Marketing
0203 905 1495 / 07799 860 980
Mary.Whenman@british-business-bank.co.uk

About the British Business Bank

The British Business Bank is the UK government’s economic development bank. Established in November 2014, its mission is to make finance markets for smaller businesses work more effectively, enabling those businesses to prosper, grow and build UK economic activity. Its remit is to design, deliver and efficiently manage UK-wide smaller business access to finance programmes for the UK government.

The British Business Bank is currently supporting almost £5.2bn of finance to nearly 75,000 smaller businesses (as at end of March 2018).

As well as increasing both supply and diversity of finance for UK smaller businesses through its programmes, the Bank works to raise awareness of the finance options available to smaller businesses:

  • The Business Finance Guide (published in partnership with the ICAEW and a further 21 business and finance organisations) impartially sets out the range of finance options available to businesses at all stages – from start-ups to SMEs and growing mid-sized companies. Businesses can take the interactive journey at thebusinessfinanceguide.co.uk/bbb.
  • The new British Business Bank Finance Hub provides everything high-growth businesses need to know about their finance options, featuring short films, expert guides, checklists and articles from finance providers to help make their application a success. The new site also features case studies and learnings from real businesses to guide businesses through the process of applying for growth finance.

As the holding company of the group operating under the trading name of British Business Bank, British Business Bank plc is wholly owned by HM Government and is not authorised or regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The British Business Bank operates under its own brand name through a number of subsidiaries, one of which is authorised and regulated by the FCA.

British Business Bank plc and its principal operating subsidiaries are not banking institutions and do not operate as such. A complete legal structure chart for British Business Bank plc and its subsidiaries can be found on the British Business Bank plc website.