Baroness Jo ValentineDirector of Place, Business in the Community

Baroness Jo Valentine is a Crossbench member of the British House of Lords. Her career spans the city, industry, campaigning and regeneration. She is currently Co-Director of BITC’s Place programme, and holds several non-executive roles, including vice chair of UCL and chair of Heathrow Southern Railway. In 2016, she established and led BITC’s Blackpool’s Pride of Place partnership.

Baroness Valentine previously ran London First, joining the organisation in 1997 as Managing Director and becoming Chief Executive in 2003. Prior to London First, she worked in corporate finance at Barings Bank, where she became the first female manager. In 1988, on secondment from Barings, she established and ran “The Blackburn Partnership”, a public-private partnership to regenerate Blackburn, Lancashire. In 1990, she joined the BOC Group to head the corporate finance and planning function, leaving in 1995 to establish the Central London Partnership. 

She was a member of the Board of Governance for The Peabody Trust from 2012 to 2017, a board member of the New West End Company and of inward investment agency Think London and a Trustee of Teach First.