Ruth Handcock Non-Executive Director, Aldermore
Previously
Chief Customer Officer, Octopus InvestmentsChief Customer Officer & Chief of Staff, Tandem Bank
Global Finance Director, Bacardi
Company
Founded in 2009, Aldermore is a specialist bank offering straightforward products to SMEs, homeowners, landlords and individuals, and remains one of the UK’s most successful challenger banks. Today, they have around 2,000 employees and customer lending in excess of £10 billion, reflecting a decade of strong and sustained growth. They are consistently profitable, delivering profits of over £130m.
Search Background
Following their acquisition by FirstRand Group, and change of CEO, it was a natural moment for some of the Board to step down. They wanted to bring, for the first time, a digital and technology minded NED onto the Board, as they recognized that technology would play a major role in capitalizing on the huge market opportunity ahead of them. Aldermore are also in the process of delivering a company- wide systems transformation and needed expertise on their Board around technology innovation and digital-first strategies.
Requirements
It was important that the Non-Executive Director was digitally-minded and forward thinking, particularly around customer experience. They needed to have the experience and gravitas to be able to contribute as a full Board Director, and ideally would have had some entrepreneurial experience in their career. Financial Services experience was also essential.
Result
Ruth Handcock joined the Aldermore Board in October 2021. She is currently CEO of Octopus Investments and was previously part of the founding team of Tandem Bank, where she was Chief Customer Officer and Chief of Staff from 2014 – 2018. She has prior Non-Executive experience, as Chairperson of Seccl, and as Chair of Trustees of the charity Supporting West Africa Through Schooling.
Pat Butler
Chair
This was a challenging search, that we had previously attempted twice before with other partners unsuccessfully. Maria and her team helped us shape our thoughts on what we really needed and built a compelling list of options. They demonstrated great resilience when we changed the spec mid-flight as we met people, and we greatly appreciated their patience and flexibility. We are delighted with the superb result of Ruth joining the board and would have no hesitation to work with Maria and Erevena again.
