Rodney Duke Mr Duke is a senior banker with broad experience across most areas of retail, commercial and corporate banking. He was a non-executive Director of Alliance & Leicester Group plc until its takeover by Banco Santander in October 2008. Rod retired from his position of Group General Manager of HSBC Holdings plc in 2004 where he had responsibility for the UK Bank. Prior to that he was General Manager Banking Services, managing HSBC's distribution capability for both personal and commercial customers, leading 23,000 staff across the branch network, call centres and internet. In the late 1990's as General Manager, Operations, he was responsible for HSBC's UK operations. During this time he replaced the payments systems platform to improve the efficiency and speed of processing £160bn payments per day. The cutting edge developments within HSBC were recognised across the industry through the award of the 'Most Admired Bank'. Rod has sat on many boards such as CHAPS Ltd, Visa (UK) Ltd, Think London and Cheque & Credit Clearing Ltd, & also served as Chairman of HSBC Pension Trustees Limited.

Richard Townley Richard is a well known professional in the commercial real estate sector where he has held a number of senior posts. He obtained a BSc in Estate Management from the University of London and has practised as a Chartered Surveyor since 1967 specialising in commercial property investment. Whilst a partner of Michael Laurie and Partners in London in the early 70’s, he opened their Paris office and was a vending shareholder during the successful sale of the business to Morgan Grenfell (now Deutsche Bank), creating the new business of Morgan Grenfell Laurie. Richard ran the investment department and became Joint Managing Director and a member of the Holding Company Board. He currently acts as a property consultant and jointly runs North Square Properties, a privately held commercial property company.