Corporate Affairs Director, OakNorth

Valentina is the Corporate Affairs Director at OakNorth, where she has been since June 2015.

With oversight of external and internal communications, events, content, ESG/sustainability, and OakNorth’s UK CSR/1+1% Commitment, she helps set the strategic direction for stakeholder engagement globally and is an observer on the Bank’s Executive Committee.

 She is also a Founding Editorial Board member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ multi award-winning member magazine, INFLUENCE; a Board Advisor to ETA Technologies – a startup on a mission to empower investors with a sophisticated, quantified, and comprehensive analysis of the teams they plan to invest in; and a Commissioner for The Entrepreneurs Network’s Private Business Commission chaired by Steve Rigby, to address the UK's growing inability to scale and retain private companies. 

She started her career at communications consultancy, Lansons, where she was awarded the Outstanding Young Communicator Award at the CIPR Excellence Awards. In 2018, she was named in the Standout 35 of Innovate Finance’s Women in Fintech Powerlist.

Why do you support the work of The Entrepreneurs Network?

Because as the neobank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs, there is clear alignment with OakNorth’s strategic goals and objectives, and that of The Entrepreneurs Network, as well as a shared passion for empowering entrepreneurs and increasing the pipeline of entrepreneurial and enterprising talent in the UK.

What research should more people read?

OakNorth’s research with the Social Market Foundation:

• Full Scale: revealing the barriers preventing more SMEs in the UK from reaching scale-up stage and provides recommendations to government on how to overcome them.

• The Scale of the Opportunity: revealing the outsized impact of scale-up businesses on the UK economy by region, country, and sector.

Why is the UK an attractive place to grow a business?

As OakNorth’s co-founder and CEO, Rishi Khosla, has written in the past: “The UK has so much to offer: we have world-class research universities (four of the world’s top 10 universities are here); forward-thinking regulators with an open approach to innovation; a strong framework of common law and a common language; and a timezone that allows true global operations across EMEA, APAC, and the Americas. The result is that the UK has created more tech unicorns than any other country, bar the US and China, and is a world leader in terms of attracting investment. London is particularly unique being home to a global finance centre (including the London Stock Exchange), a tech centre, and a policy / regulatory centre all within a few tube stops of one another, making it an exceptional place for innovative companies to be born and thrive.”