Judith Hartley named interim chief of British Business Bank’s commercial subsidiaries
The British Business Bank (BBB) has appointed Judith Hartley as interim chief executive of its two commercial subsidiaries, British Business Investments and British Patient Capital.
She replaces Catherine Lewis La Torre, who has recently been appointed chief executive of the state development bank.
Both new appointments take effect on 1 September.
Hartley (pictured) currently holds the position of managing director of the BBB’s UK Network, a team that is physically located within each of the English regions and the three Devolved Nations.
She also joins the bank’s executive committee as part of her promotion.
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Prior to her current role, Hartley was previously the BBB’s managing director, Lending Solutions, where she was responsible for the delivery of a number of the bank’s debt-based products, including the Enterprise Finance Guarantee, Help to Grow and Start Up Loans.
Earlier in her career, she had worked in corporate banking with Barclays and Bank of Scotland.
“Judith is a highly respected leader, with more than 30 years’ corporate banking experience and a strong track record of commercial success,” said Lewis La Torre.
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“She has successfully established and led the bank’s UK Network team and recently led the bank’s lender accreditation team during the Covid-19 response and has made a considerable contribution to the bank since she joined in 2014. I am delighted that she has agreed to take on the role of chief executive on an interim basis and look forward to working with her as we support the UK’s economic recovery.”
The BBB also announced the appointment of Francis Small as chair of British Business Investments and Russ Cummings as chair of British Patient Capital from 1 September.
Small previously spent 36 years at EY where he went on to become global head of corporate finance, while Cummings has more than 25 years’ experience as a venture capital and private equity investor having worked for Scottish Equity Partners and 3i Group.
At the end of 2019, the BBB had supported more than 94,000 businesses with over £7.7bn of loans or investments through its various programmes.
Since 23 March, it has launched four coronavirus business loan schemes, so far delivering more than £52bn of additional finance to over 1.2 million UK businesses.