Executive Committee

Chris became Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer on 1 October 2024 upon completion of the acquisition of Virgin Money by Nationwide Building Society (Nationwide). Before then he had been Chief Financial Officer of Nationwide since October 2019 having been a Nationwide Board member since April 2009. His broad background and extensive cross functional knowhow gained during his time at Nationwide means he is ideally placed to lead and integrate Virgin Money into the wider Nationwide Group.

Chris is a chartered accountant with over 30 years’ experience in retail and commercial banking having held senior leadership roles across finance, treasury, operations, retail distribution and risk management.

His previous positions include Group Finance Director of Alliance and Leicester Group, Board Director at Visa Europe and Deputy Managing Director for Girobank. He has been a Director of the Lending Standards Board and a Trustee of National Numeracy.

Sarah joined the business from Thomson Reuters, where she was Chief Information Officer. Prior to Thomson Reuters, she held roles as Chief Executive Officer of NHS Digital and Chief Information Officer at the Home Office. Sarah holds a number of non-executive positions which further broadens the perspective she brings to Virgin Money. In her earlier career Sarah spent 23 years in Financial Services, during which she held CIO roles at Credit Suisse, UBS, Deutsche Bank and Lehman Brothers. Sarah was voted No 1 in the UK Tech50 for 2021, Computer Weekly’s annual ranking of the Top 50 Most Influential Leaders in the UK Tech Industry.

James’s previous roles include leading NAB’s London branch legal team and roles supporting NAB and Clydesdale Bank Treasury activities as part of NAB’s Capital & Funding legal team in Melbourne and London. Before joining NAB, James worked in private legal practice at Hogan Lovells in London, Paris and Frankfurt.

James sponsors the Bank’s disability inclusion network.

Syreeta has over 20 years of experience working in Human Resources roles. She spent 11 years at Citi, holding several senior HR roles, the most recent of which was Managing Director, Head of HR for Global Functions, Operations and Technology, leading HR strategy for 20,000 employees across Europe, Middle East and Africa. Prior to her time at Citi, Syreeta worked at BT Group for 11 years in number of senior roles.

Syreeta holds an Executive Masters in HR leadership and completed an HR Executive Programme at University of Michigan. She was included in The Powerlist between 2023 and 2025, which recognises the UK’s most influential black people, being in the top 10 in 2024. She was also named as an Involve Empower role model in 2022 and won ‘Leader in Financial Services’ at the 2018 Black British Business Awards. Syreeta is an advisory Board member for the Black Talent charter initiative in the UK led by Harry Matovu KC, and Vice Chair of the Change the Race Ratio Campaign chaired by Sir Trevor Phillips.

Susan joined from ING Bank, where she spent over 20 years in a number of commercial and risk roles, most recently as Chief Risk Officer, Retail Banking where she was responsible for setting the standards for credit risk, compliance and operational risk management across all of ING’s retail markets. Susan was also Chief Risk Officer, Challenger and Growth Countries (C&G) during this period with responsibility for Chief Risk Officers in all of ING’s global C&G markets.

Susan holds an MBA in Business Economics from The University of Amsterdam and completed the Executive Banking Programme: Management at INSEAD Business School, Fontainebleau.

Graeme has been a Chartered Accountant for nearly 30 years, working in corporate finance at PwC before taking up roles in VC-backed financial services software companies, first as a Chief Financial Officer and then as a General Manager.

Graeme was previously Chair of the UK Finance Commercial Products Board and is a member of the KAL ATM Software advisory board.

Simon has over 20 years of experience in the financial services sector. He joined Virgin Money in 2008 as Head of Finance, Planning and Analytics, when the business was privately owned and helped secure its banking licence. He also played a leading role in raising funding and executing acquisitions ahead of the bank’s 2014 IPO.

He has since worked across both the commercial and finance functions in a number of roles including Head of Business Partnering, Income and Costs, interim Head of Digital Banking and Head of Unsecured Lending.

Simon started his career at NatWest working in finance then in their Investment Bank.

Katherine has over 22 years of financial services experience. Before joining Virgin Money, she spent 10 years at MBNA / Bank of America undertaking numerous roles across its Unsecured Lending business, spanning Finance, Business Operations, Contact Centres, Marketing and Partnerships.