News

British Business Bank appoints UK Network Director for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

The British Business Bank has appointed Jennifer Donnellan to a new position as UK Network Director, Devolved Nations with responsibility for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The British Business Bank is the UK government-owned economic development bank dedicated to making finance markets work better for smaller businesses.

The Bank is establishing a UK Network, with team members based within each of the English regions and the three Devolved Nations. The UK Network will help enhance business finance ecosystems across the UK, so smaller businesses, wherever they are, can grow and prosper. It will also help the Bank develop a deeper understanding of small business access to finance markets in all parts of the UK, so that, ultimately, the Bank can improve its support to smaller businesses everywhere.

Jennifer and her team will represent the UK Network across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and will engage closely with business finance stakeholders in these three nations.

Jennifer joins the Bank after seven years in public policy and politics. For the last two years, she was a Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for Scotland focusing on UK Government policy in Scotland. Prior to that, she spent nearly three years working in HM Treasury as Special Adviser to the then Chancellor, George Osborne, where she covered a broad range of public spending and policy areas.

Judith Hartley, Managing Director, UK Network, said: “I am delighted to welcome Jennifer to the British Business Bank’s new UK Network team. This team is effectively a ‘start up’ within the Bank so Jennifer is joining at a really exciting time. I’m confident she will be a great ambassador for the Bank in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and that she’ll develop warm relationships with business finance stakeholders in all three nations.”

Jennifer Donnellan, UK Network Director, Devolved Nations, said: “I am very pleased to be joining the UK Network team as Director for the Devolved Nations. I want to help the Bank build lasting connections between us, the nations’ smaller businesses, and the business finance ecosystems that serve them across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We want to enable smaller businesses to explore the different finance options available and I’m looking forward to getting started.”

The UK Network team is part of the British Business Bank’s new Demand Development Unit, which has been specifically created to raise the Bank’s profile and relationship with smaller businesses across the UK. The Demand Development Unit also incorporates the Bank’s recently launched Finance Hub, a 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.

Further information

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

Suzanna Jebbitt
Communications Manager
07827 552 301
Suzanna.Jebbitt@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 more than £5.5bn of finance to over 78,000 smaller businesses (as at end of June 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 independent and impartial information to high-growth businesses 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.