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UK Trade & Investment refreshes board in drive to double exports
UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) has appointed seven new board members as the Government’s international business development body reorganises itself in the drive to double exports to £1 trillion a year by 2020.
Crispin Simon, Sandra Rogers and Jon Harding OBE join in the roles of managing director of trade development, managing director of marketing, and chief operating officer respectively. The fourth new member of the team, Gavin Little, will join as managing director of investment development in November. These appointments further boost UKTI’s private sector experience at senior management level.
Three new non-executive board members, Alex Dorrian CBE, Dale Murray and Jan Ward joined on Monday 1 October.
UKTI’s chief executive Nick Baird said:
“Supporting more UK businesses to export is a key plank in the Government’s plan for growth. UKTI has reorganised itself to ensure we are providing practical support to exporters and inward investors over the next five years.
“I am delighted that we have been able to attract to UKTI senior executives to bolster the top team and provide leadership across the organisation. Our non-executive board members will also play an active part in guiding and advising UKTI on taking forward this important work.”
Nick Baird also thanked retiring non-executive board member Tim Robinson who has completed five years of service on the Board.
“Tim Robinson’s business experience and knowledge have been extremely useful to the board and I wish him well for the future.”
UKTI is pursuing a five year strategy, "Britain open for business", to support British companies to begin and expand exports and attract greater levels of investment to the UK. The strategy identified four key pathways:
1.Encouraging significantly more small and medium sized enterprises to export.
2.Winning high-value opportunities overseas for UK businesses of all sizes.
3.Creating a pipeline of high quality inward investment, including investment in UK infrastructure and regeneration projects.
4.Building strategic relationships at the highest levels with the most significant inward investors, the UK’s top exporters, and major overseas buyers.
In 2011/12, UKTI helped over 25,000 UK businesses, 90 per cent of which were small and medium-sized, to generate £30 billion in additional sales. This helped those firms create 36,000 new jobs and secure a further 68,500. UKTI also works to attract high quality investment; results for the last financial year showed that the UK secured 1,406 investment projects creating or safeguarding 112,659 jobs