The former chief executive of Virgin Money has withdrawn from the Bank of England’s financial policy committee to lead the UK operations of Salesforce, the Californian cloud computing company.
Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia’s decision to take another frontline executive role nearly a year after leaving Virgin Money means that she will not be able to join the committee in April next year, as had been planned.
The Treasury, which runs recruitment for the Bank’s policy committees, said that it would launch an appointment process shortly.
Her start date on the committee had been delayed already owing to a conflict of interest issue. Martin Taylor, whom she was due to replace, was asked to remain in his post because Dame Jayne-Anne had agreed to be a paid adviser to CYBG, the group behind the Clydesdale and Yorkshire banking franchises, for 18 months after it bought Virgin Money.
Dame Jayne-Anne, 57, was appointed to the FPC in December 2018. It is the committee charged with ensuring that Britain is not hit by another financial crisis and has the power to set loan-to-value limits on mortgage lending, as well as to impose capital controls on the high street banks.
Last month Dame Jayne-Anne stepped down as a non-executive of Stagecoach, the buses and trains travel group, to focus on Snoop, the financial technology start-up she founded.
Her new job at Salesforce, a $125 billion giant that specialises in cloud-based customer relationship management software, will be a return to the top echelons of business after her 11 years at Virgin Money. She will join in October as UK and Ireland chief executive. Her pay was not disclosed.
A Bank spokesman said: “We are of course sorry that Jayne-Anne Gadhia won’t be taking up her role as an external member on the financial policy committee. We fully understand her decision and wish her well.” Mr Taylor, 67, will continue to serve until next year.
Dame Jayne-Anne said that she had “admired Salesforce from afar for a long time”.
