Financial services expert takes helm at economic partnership

Financial services expert Victoria Nye is taking the helm at the North Wiltshire Economic Partnership, a new public and private sector organisation that aims to drive economic growth in, and attract inward investment to, the area.

And with her background in lobbying central government on behalf of financial institutions, Victoria is keen to push economic development to the top of Wiltshire Council’s agenda.

Victoria worked in the financial markets of the US and Europe before joining the Investment Management Association, the trade body for the UK’s £3,000 billion asset management industry.

And as chairman of the Investment Governance Group for Defined Contribution Pensions – a post she accepted at the invitation of the Treasury – she is charged with encouraging employers and investors to work harder and smarter to provide people with good pensions.

Meanwhile, her passion for improving the standards of education & training – working with firms, institutes and trainers – suggests encouraging school and college leavers to have the skills employers want, will be high on the partnership’s list of priorities.

As director of training and education at the Investment Management Association, Victoria was invited to join the Training and Development Agency for Schools, and initially was the only board member with a non-education background.

And as a founding member of the Personal Finance Education Group, Victoria has been responsible for bringing money sense classes to schoolchildren and has successfully lobbied for personal finance awareness to be made part of the national curriculum.

Victoria said: “I know that public and private approaches to economic development differ, and anything that improves communications and relationships between these two worlds has to be for the better.

“I want to see the partnership engaging with employers, expressing their views to local government, and encouraging the council to act in the best interests of the business community.

“I’m pleased to be joining such a strong board and would like to thank partnership manager Colette Mallon for the excellent work she has already done in the organisation’s first nine months.”

Victoria has a deep-rooted love for the county. She worked for the National Trust Wessex for nearly six years as a volunteer on the regional committee taking a special interest in Lacock and Avenury, and lives in the village where she grew up – Foxham near Chippenham – with her husband and three teenage children.