Lady Susan Rice CBE, Chair

In addition to her role as Chair of the Group, Lady Susan Rice is also Chair of Scottish Water, the Scottish Fiscal Commission and Business Stream. She is a Non-Executive Director of J Sainsbury plc, the North American Income Trust Big Society Capital and the Banking Standards Board. She is also the current President of SCDI.

Lady Rice was made Managing Director, Lloyds Banking Group Scotland in 2000 – the first woman to head a clearing bank in the UK, and became the first woman to be appointed President of SCDI in 2012. She was previously Chief Executive and then Chairman of Lloyds TSB Scotland. In July 2014, she became the first Chair of Scotland’s new Fiscal Commission. Alongside her roles as both a commercial banker and Director of Bank of England, Lady Rice was also a member of the recent First Minister Alex Salmond’s Council of Economic Advisers. A founding non-executive of Big Society Capital, and previously of Charity Bank, she has helped develop numerous social finance models in the US and the UK. In the arts, she chaired the Edinburgh International Book Festival for 15 years, and Edinburgh’s Festivals Forum, and currently chairs the Governors of the Patrons of Scotland’s National Galleries, all to ensure a vibrant cultural base in the country.

A director of the Bank of England until summer 2014, Lady Rice was also a non-executive director of SSE plc, the UK’s largest producer of power from renewable sources,for eleven years. Through the 2020 Group, she helps lead cross-sector collaboration on a sustainable economy and reduction of carbon emissions. She is also founding Chair of the Chartered Banker Professional Standards Board which is creating, for the first time, professional standards for bankers throughout the UK. Alongside a number of honorary degrees, Lady Rice is a Regent of the Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh and a Fellow of the RSA, the Chartered Banker Institute and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.