Entrepreneurship School

Anne Boden founded Starling Bank in 2014, after a distinguished 30+ year career in financial services working for some of the world’s biggest financial institutions. She spotted earlier than others that the only way to have a truly digital bank, built around customer needs, was to start a new bank from scratch. She led Starling from its early days as a fast-growing fintech start-up to become a leading bank that this year [2023] announced record profits. She stepped aside as CEO in June this year [2023], but remains on the Board. Starling consistently tops the independent banking performance tables compiled by the UK government’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Anne was born and grew up in Swansea and graduated from Swansea University with a degree in Computer Science and Chemistry before embarking on a financial services career that took her around the world. She has chronicled the story of the creation of Starling in her best selling book, Banking on It, which was described by one reviewer as a “banking blockbuster”, and named as The Times’ Business Book of 2020. She is also the author of The Money Revolution. She is widely considered as a thought-leader in the financial technology, or fintech, sector. She was awarded an MBE for services to fintech in 2018 and is chair of the government’s Women-led High-growth Enterprise Taskforce. She also sits on the Business Advisory Council of the Mayor of London.