Barclays Corporate Affairs today announced the appointment of Jane Atkin as its new Chief Operating Officer (COO). Reporting to Corporate Affairs Director, Stephen Whitehead, Ms Atkin will lead the development of the function’s strategy and planning processes, helping to build the global Barclays Corporate Affairs capability. She will join the team in October 2006.
Her remit will include ensuring the efficient running, governance and control of the function and aligning global corporate affairs operations in more than 40 countries in which Barclays operates. The role incorporates prioritising and managing budget, capability and skills development, effective management of risk and compliance and working with evaluation tools to measure the contribution of the function to the Group’s overall business objectives.
Ms Atkin joins from SABMiller where she was a full-time senior consultant reporting to Director, Group Corporate Affairs, Sue Clark. Her role there included leading the corporate affairs integration for the South American business, developing the infrastructure for the global corporate affairs function and developing and managing a bespoke strategic global reputation measurement tool.
Prior to joining SABMiller in September 2005, she was a founding member of First&42nd in 1997, a successful communications consulting business, becoming Managing Director in 2003 after its acquisition by Edelman in 2001. She managed consultants across all its practice areas – Reputation Management, Corporate Brand, CSR and Organisational Development. Clients included Unilever, Allied Domecq and SABMiller. Between 2001 and 2003, she acted as full time Global Client Relationship Manager for the Orange business, based in-house at its offices. Her responsibilities included strategy and creative programme development. She was senior advisor to the Group Director of Corporate Affairs on PR Campaigns, Brand, Media Relations, Sponsorship and CSR.
Stephen Whitehead, said: “Building the corporate affairs function to support Barclays ambitions means looking at issues and opportunities from a global perspective. Jane will play a vital role in ensuring that we rise to this challenge and the experience she brings from her roles with some of the world’s leading companies will be invaluable to Barclays.”
Jane Atkin added: “This is an exciting time to be joining Barclays as the Corporate Affairs team continues to play an increasingly important role in helping the Group meet its objectives. I have been very impressed with Stephen’s vision and plans for the function and look forward to working with him and the rest of the team in fulfilling them.”
