Jo Palmer
Chair
Jo Palmer was appointed a non-executive director on 1 September 2015, and Interim Chair on 1 April 2020. She became the permanent Chair of the Trust in October 2020.
Jo has more than 30 years’ experience in banking and financial services, most recently with Lloyds Banking Group, across a range of disciplines within the UK and international operations. She has led strategic transformation, corporate development and business turnaround activities. She has 20 years of executive leadership and 10 years of board and trustee level appointments in complex, demanding, highly regulated sectors spanning private, including private equity, public, and third sector businesses.
She has led strategic reviews that establish value accretive outsourced and offshore commercial relationships. She directed and managed the creation of the commercial framework for the eighth largest UK bank as part of the ringfenced bank regulation and managed all aspects of the delivery of two independent challenger banks, TSB and Sainsbury’s Bank, to the UK high street.
Jo has extensive mergers and acquisition experience; she has held executive leadership positions in the acquisitions of TSB, HBoS, MBNA, the sale of LTSB Registrars to Equiniti Group Limited, and the joint venture large-scale outsource provider iPSL.
She led the strategic review to create the workplace transformation and location strategy for the 80,000 employees of Lloyds Banking Group and created modern working environments to transform the organisation into a digital Bank.
A passionate environmental conservationist, she led the sustainability programme for Lloyds Banking Group achieving 100 per cent renewable energy supply to UK Operations, eliminating 60 million pieces of single use plastic from catering operations and delivering a carbon neutral footprint strategy.
Jo was the Executive Sponsor for emerging talent across the 20,000 colleagues within Lloyds Banking Group Operations and was Co-Chair of the Group’s women’s network, Breakthrough, along with sponsorship of inclusion and diversity activities across Lloyds Banking Group.