News

British Business Bank appoints Jenny Knott as Non-Executive Director

The British Business Bank has appointed Jenny Knott as Non-executive Director (NED) to the board of British Business Bank plc, effective from 14 December 2020.

Jenny Knott is a highly experienced board-level investment banker with over 30 years’ experience in banking and corporate finance. She has served as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Chief Operating Officer (COO) on the Boards of global investment banks, financial services corporates and charitable organisations.

Jenny is currently a Non-executive Director for SimplyHealth and Gresham Technology plc, for whom she is also the Chair of the Board Remuneration Committee, Chair of the Board Audit Committee in her capacity as Trustee for Ovarian Cancer Action, and Chairwoman of Equiida, a global senior executive leadership advisory firm founded on the science that greater inclusivity improves business performance.

Additionally, she is co-founder of FinTech Strategic Advisors, and assists clients with their FinTech investment and adoption strategies.

Jenny Knott said: “I am excited to be joining the British Business Bank’s Board as a Non-executive Director at such an important time for the UK’s smaller businesses and the wider economy. I look forward to adding my expertise to an already highly accomplished team and working with an organisation that brings a huge amount of value to smaller business finance markets.”

Lord Smith, Chair of the British Business Bank, said: “Jenny has a wealth of industry experience, and we are delighted to welcome her to the Board of the British Business Bank. As the Bank continues to grow, her extensive experience as a banker, co-founder and Chair will bring fresh insight and valuable knowledge to our work.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

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 were supporting nearly £8bn of finance to almost 94,800 smaller businesses at end of June 2020. Since March 2020, the British Business Bank has launched four new Coronavirus business loan schemes, delivering tens of billions of pounds of finance to 1.5m businesses.

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 British Business Bank Finance Hub provides independent and impartial information to businesses about their finance options, featuring short films, expert guides, checklists and articles from finance providers to help make their application a success.

In light of the coronavirus pandemic and EU Exit, the Finance Hub has expanded, and it now targets a wider business audience. It continues to provide information and support for scale-up, high growth and potential high growth businesses, but now provides increased content, information and products for businesses in survival and recovery mindsets. The Finance Hub has been redesigned and repositioned to reflect this, during this period of economic uncertainty.

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 through a number of subsidiaries, none of which are authorised or regulated by the FCA or the PRA.

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.