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Edward O’Hara takes up post of Chief Risk Officer at British Business Bank

The British Business Bank today welcomes Edward O’Hara as its new Chief Risk Officer.

As the UK government’s economic development bank, the Bank’s mission is to help drive economic growth by making finance markets work better for small businesses, enabling them to prosper and grow. A key part of the delivery of its objectives is the management of taxpayers’ money efficiently within a robust risk management framework.

Edward joins the Bank from The Commonwealth Trade Bank Plc, where he served as Chief Risk Officer from early 2017. He has had an extensive career in Risk and strategic leadership positions in a wide variety of international banking and finance institutions, including in the UK, USA, Poland and Bulgaria.

Keith Morgan, British Business Bank CEO, said: “Edward joins the British Business Bank at an exciting time for our organisation, which is going through an ongoing and rapid expansion. As we do so, it’s important that we continually assess and mitigate against our key risks as we seek to deliver more of the finance that smaller UK businesses need to fulfil their potential.

“I’d like to welcome Edward to the Bank and look forward to working with him as a key member of our Executive Committee and senior leadership team.”

Edward O’Hara said: “I am delighted to be joining the British Business Bank as Chief Risk Officer at this exciting time, and am looking forward to working alongside such a motivated and dynamic team to help the Bank in its mission to make finance markets work better for smaller businesses.”

ENDS

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 programmes are supporting more than £6.4bn of finance to over 85,000 smaller businesses (as at end of December 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.

 

  • 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.