British Business Bank bosses pick up New Year Honours

Posted by Admin January 2, 2025 Bussiness

The British Business Bank’s chief executive, Louis Taylor (pictured), has been awarded a CBE for services to business and trade in the King’s New Year Honours List 2025.

Additionally, Catherine Lewis la Torre, former chief executive of the Bank’s commercial subsidiaries, British Patient Capital and British Business Investments, and interim chief executive of the British Business Bank has been awarded a CBE for services to business.

And Judith Hartley, former chief executive of the Bank’s commercial subsidiary, British Business Investments and interim chief executive of British Patient Capital, has been awarded an MBE for services to business.

“I am delighted to have received this Honour from His Majesty,” said Taylor. “Importantly, it highlights the genuinely outstanding and productive work done by so many colleagues over the years at both UK Export Finance and the British Business Bank in the service of UK business and trade, and I thank them for that.”

Lewis La Torre said: “It’s truly wonderful to be recognised for the impact achieved for businesses across the UK arising from the different roles I held at the Bank. The unwavering support of my teams, peers and colleagues was the vital ingredient which made the successful delivery of ambitious outcomes possible. This was true whether I was serving as interim chief executive of the British Business Bank, appointed by the Secretary of State for Business to lead the Bank though the Covid crisis, or as the foundational chief executive of British Patient Capital, launched to address the market failure for scale-up capital in the UK and, in my first role as chief executive of the British Business Investments, resetting the investment strategy to provide a broader range of lending and credit options for SMEs.”

Hartley said: “I am really thrilled to receive this honour in recognition of services to business. Supporting the UK’s smaller businesses has been a constant throughout my career, and I could not have achieved any of this without the brilliant colleagues and leadership teams I have worked with at British Business Investments, British Patient Capital and the British Business Bank.”

The British Business Bank is the UK’s economic development bank, supporting access to finance for smaller businesses across the country via more than 200 delivery partners. Its programmes support over £17.4bn of finance to over 64,000 smaller businesses, as of the end of March 2024.