Dame Colette Bowe, a former chief executive of the UK’s top financial regulator, and Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia, former chief executive of Virgin Money, have been appointed to the powerful Financial Policy Committee.

The FPC is the UK’s ‘macro-prudential’ regulator and has an objective of ensuring the stability of the UK’s financial system by “identifying, monitoring and addressing systemic risks.”

Chancellor Philip Hammond the appointments this week. They will become external members of the Bank’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC).

Dame Colette has a long track record in financial services and regulation and was chief executive of the Personal Investment Authority, one of the predecessors of the FCA. She worked at the PIA from 1994 to 1997 and prior to that was head of retail regulation at the Securities and Investments Board, the leading UK financial regulator at the time.

Until recently she was also a board member of the UK Statistics Authority and the Department for Transport.

Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia was the CEO of Virgin Money from 2007 until 2018 and regularly attended the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council.

Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney said: “As chair of the Banking Standards Board, Colette has led the way in developing and embedding better standards of conduct across the banking sector. Her experience in the private sector and handling some of the biggest regulatory challenges of our times will also be extremely valuable to the committee’s deliberations in the coming years.

“Jayne-Anne brings deep and relevant experience in retail banking and her successful business career. In her public policy she has championed the transformative impact of adopting new technologies and of greater diversity within the workforce of the financial services industry.”

Dame Colette and Dame Jayne-Anne will replace Richard Sharp and Martin Taylor, who are stepping down at the end of Q1 2019 and Q2 2019 respectively. Both Dame Colette and Dame Jayne-Anne will serve three-year terms.

Prior to her role at the Banking Standards Board, Dame Colette was chairman of Ofcom (2009-2014) and held board memberships at Morgan Stanley Bank International (2005-2011), Axa Investment Managers (2012-2014) and as executive chairman of Electra Private Equity (2010-2014) among other positions.

Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia has represented the UK finance industry as a board member of UK Finance and currently provides industry input to the FCA through her membership of the FCA Practitioner Panel. She also led the Government’s review into equality and inclusion in Financial Services as the Women in Finance Champion.