What was your highlight of 2025?
It has to be delivering a record year: £14.5bn in financing in 2024-25 and supporting around 70,000 jobs across the UK. Behind those numbers there are businesses we’ve helped, contracts we’ve enabled, and jobs strengthened in communities nationwide. It is the positive impact on the ground that makes the numbers special.
What was the hardest part of being a leader in 2025?
Leadership is often about balancing pressures without losing focus. For me, this year was about navigating unexpected headwinds – like the cyber-attack to Jaguar Land Rover, which had a heavy toll on supply chains and the economy – without losing sight of our long-term goals and core principles.
Ensuring that our people stayed motivated and focused while responding quickly to support vital supply chains required resilience and clarity.
What are the main challenges facing your department in the coming year?
Looking ahead, our biggest challenge is scale and speed. Demand for export credit support remains strong, but deals are becoming more complex – especially in sectors like clean energy, critical minerals, and defence – where due diligence and international standards are non-negotiable.
We need to support business growth at pace without compromising on environmental and social safeguards. Another challenge is concentration risk: managing exposure in sectors like automotive and defence while continuing to diversify. Finally, we must keep innovating and enhancing our products so UK exporters can compete globally. All of this must be achieved while maintaining fiscal discipline and delivering impact at no net cost to the taxpayer.
Which celebrity or historical figure would you choose to turn on the Christmas lights in your town – and why?
King Alfred. He transformed Winchester into the nation’s capital in his day, so that should earn him the honour. A lot of people have heard the story of how he burned the cakes when he was on the run from the Vikings, but I think we’d be fine to trust him with the Christmas lights! It would be fascinating to see what he makes of all the new things in town since the last time he was around, from Winchester Cathedral to the Science Centre.
Read all the entries to this year's perm secs round up here