As the former trainee who worked her way up to become the first female boss of a major British lender, it is Dame Alison Rose who holds ultimate responsibility for Nigel Farage’s bank account closure.
Since taking the helm at Natwest, which owns Coutts, Dame Alison, 53, has overseen their pivot towards saving the planet and putting diversity at the heart of the business.
Coutts, which only accepts wealthy clients, has in recent years focused less on maintaining its image as the bank of the late Queen and more on championing initiatives on climate change. Its transformation appears to have come from the top.
Dame Alison grew up overseas with a military family, before returning home when she was 15 and later graduating from Durham University in 1991.
She joined Natwest as a graduate a year later and spent three decades climbing up the ranks and later going on to lead RBS’s corporate and banking division.
In 2019, she was appointed the first female chief executive of RBS, which later became Natwest, in what was widely seen as a watershed moment for the banking industry.
However, rather than focus solely on the financials of the lender, still a third owned by the taxpayer, she decided the bank must involve itself in debates over climate change and LGBT rights.
Tackling climate change is a ‘central pillar’
Just months after she was appointed, Dame Alison announced that “tackling climate change would be a central pillar” of her leadership and earlier this year called on banks to finance net zero.
“Put simply, tackling the climate emergency is one of, if not the biggest issue of our time – and banks have a massive role to play in mobilising the power of finance to meet the net zero ambition,” she said.
One the same day of her speech the bank ended new loans for oil and gas extraction.
She was appointed Dame Commander of the British Empire in the New Year’s Honours List and has been an advocate for equality in the workplace, co-authoring a review on female entrepreneurship.
Last year she took home £5.25m over the year, as she received an annual bonus for the first time since the bank’s bailout by the UK Government during the 2008 financial crisis.
