Partner Article

NORTH EAST ACCESS TO FINANCE GROUP ANNOUNCES NEW

North East Access to Finance (NEA2F) has appointed Lucy Winskell to be a non-executive director of five of its subsidiary companies.

A former Newcastle Law Society president and current Pro Vice-Chancellor at Northumbria University, with responsibility for the university’s enterprise initiatives in the region, Lucy also brings a wealth of board level experience with investment funds to the role.

She is deputy chairman of Business Enterprise UK Ltd, which delivers regional and national contracts to improve business start-ups and to sustain SMEs and is a former non executive director of the North East Regional Investment Fund, which managed more than £50m worth of funds aimed at improving the growth of SMEs.

NEA2F is the body set up to co-ordinate and manage the legacies from public sector funds including some of the region’s historical investment funds.

Its core objectives are to maximise the financial returns from the various investment funds under its control in the region, to undertake thought leadership, research and communication around access to finance for SMEs in North East England and to oversee the redeployment and leveraging of legacy monies to develop a successor fund to the current Finance for Business North East Fund.

In her non executive role, Lucy Winskell will sit on the boards of the subsidiary companies, overseeing the performance of investment funds and generating returns which will be the basis of new funds in the future.

Stephen Lightley, chief operating officer at NEA2F, said: “It is vital to the future of the region’s small and medium sized businesses that the funds that exist to support them are maintained in such a way that their returns are maximised most effectively and we are delighted to welcome Lucy, who brings such a wealth of experience and expertise to NEA2F”

For further information about NEA2F and the services it offers visit www.nea2f.co.uk

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Note to newsdesks

For further information, or to arrange pictures or interviews, please contact HFPR Ltd on 0191 285 7100.

NEA2F acts as a signpost for businesses to direct them to sources of finance and support that are relevant to their needs and currently available in the region.

NEA2F works to develop new sources of public investment funding that will become available to the region’s SMEs after the current programmes have come to an end. This money comes from the financial returns from previous regional investment programmes<http://nea2f.co.uk/legacy-funds/> that will be re-used in new funds.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Michelle Blow .