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Atom and Metro Bank founder to speak at North East conference

The founder of Britain’s first digital-led bank, Atom, which promises to bring 300 jobs to the North East, is set to share his story with North East business leaders.

Anthony Thomson, who also founded Metro Bank, has been secured by the Entrepreneurs’ Forum to speak at its annual business conference, Together We Can Take on the World, on May 15.

As well as being the founder of Metro Bank, Mr Thomson is also chairman of the National Skills Academy for Financial Services and chairman of the Financial Services Forum, which he founded in 1998.

In 1987 he founded City Financial Marketing which, by the time he sold it to Publicis in 1997, was Europe’s largest financial services marketing and communications group.

Executive director of the Entrepreneurs’ Forum Nicola Short said: “Bringing Anthony Thomson to the North East is a great coup for the Forum and completes an outstanding line-up of speakers for our annual business conference. It promises to be a superb day of inspiration for the region’s entrepreneurs.”

He first had the idea for a new, customer-led bank in 2007 when the country was on the cusp of a banking crisis.

Since 2010, Metro Bank has opened 25 branches, which are open seven days a week, 361 days a year, and holds over 300,000 customer accounts.

Mr Thomson served as the first chairman from 2009 before leaving the bank in December 2012.

He went on to serve as visiting professor to London Metropolitan University Business School and will soon announce his next new venture in financial services.

He has been included in Marketing Magazine’s Power and Influence Top 100 and named by the Evening Standard as “one of the 1,000 most influential Londoners” and one of the 60 most influential in the City.

The Financial Services Forum is an independent membership organisation for senior executives with an interest in financial services marketing.

The National Skills Academy for Financial Services is an independent employer-led, charitable organisation, which is a leading body for training & development in the financial services industry.

Mr Thomson is also co-founder of Moneyspinners, an annual charity cycle ride for financial services executives.

He joins international model, TV personality and lingerie entrepreneur Caprice Bourret; Kresse Wesling MBE, co-founder of Elvis & Kresse, which has turned 200 tonnes of waste material into a range of fashion accessories; global entrepreneur Paul Shoker, the founder of one of India’s leading reward and recognition companies and the country’s leading online fashion forward catalogue; and Sir Tom Shebbeare, the chairman of Richard Branson’s Virgin StartUp and the first director The Prince’s Trust.

The conference is taking place for the first time at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, at starts at 9am on Thursday May 15. Places cost £99 for Forum members and guests and £125 for non-members and can be booked by visiting www.entrepreneursforum.net

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .