King’s New Year honours for British Business Bank

British Business Bank CEO, Louis Taylor, has been awarded a CBE for services to Business and Trade in the King’s New Year honours list 2025.

In addition, Catherine Lewis La Torre, former CEO of the Bank’s commercial subsidiaries, British Patient Capital and British Business Investments, and interim CEO of the British Business Bank has also been awarded a CBE for services to Business.

Judith Hartley, former CEO of the Bank’s commercial subsidiary, British Business Investments and interim CEO of British Patient Capital, has been awarded an MBE for services to Business.

Louis Taylor CBE, CEO, British Business Bank said: “I am delighted to have received this Honour from His Majesty.

“Importantly, it highlights the genuinely outstanding and productive work done by so many colleagues over the years at both UK Export Finance and the British Business Bank in the service of UK business and trade, and I thank them for that.”

Prior to his role as CEO of the British Business Bank. Louis was Chief Executive of UK Export Finance (UKEF), the UK’s export credit agency, for seven years. He also held roles as a Director General in the Department for International Trade, and a member of its Executive Committee and Management Board. Before joining UKEF, Louis held a range of senior roles at Standard Chartered Bank and spent his early career working for JP Morgan.

Louis is a trustee of the charity Sightsavers, which prevents sight loss and avoidable blindness, and promotes equal rights for disabled people. He is also a former chair of trustees of the charity Music in Prisons, which runs music education projects to help rehabilitate offenders, and a former chair of governors of the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle upon Tyne. He has an MA in Law from the University of Cambridge.

Catherine Lewis La Torre CBE said: “It’s truly wonderful to be recognised for the impact achieved for businesses across the UK arising from the different roles I held at the Bank.

“The unwavering support of my teams, peers and colleagues was the vital ingredient which made the successful delivery of ambitious outcomes possible.

“This was true whether I was serving as Interim CEO of the British Business Bank, appointed by the Secretary of State for Business to lead the Bank though the Covid crisis, or as the foundational CEO of British Patient Capital, launched to address the market failure for scale-up capital in the UK and, in my first role as CEO of the British Business Investments, resetting the investment strategy to provide a broader range of lending and credit options for SMEs.”

Catherine Lewis La Torre served as interim CEO of the British Business Bank between 2020 and 2022. She was selected to be the first CEO of British Patient Capital following its launch in 2018. Catherine joined the Bank in 2016 to take up the role of CEO of British Business Investments. This followed a 25-year career in the private equity industry.

Catherine is a Non-Executive Director of Edinburgh-based Cumulus Oncology and an Independent Director of Alantra Partners, listed on the Madrid Stock Exchange. She is a graduate of the London School of Economics earning a Master in Public Administration and a Bachelor of Science in Economics with First Class Honours.

Judith Hartley MBE said: “I am really thrilled to receive this honour in recognition of services to business.

“Supporting the UK’s smaller businesses has been a constant throughout my career, and I could not have achieved any of this without the brilliant colleagues and leadership teams I have worked with at British Business Investments, British Patient Capital and the British Business Bank.”

Judith Hartley was interim CEO of the British Business Bank’s two commercial subsidiaries, British Business Investments and British Patient Capital, from 2020 to 2022, and subsequently became the permanent CEO of British Business Investments. Prior to that, Judith held several other senior roles within the Bank, including Managing Director of the Bank’s UK Network and Managing Director, Lending Solutions, where she was responsible for the delivery of several of the Bank’s debt-based products, including the Enterprise Finance Guarantee and Start Up Loans. Judith built a career in corporate banking with Barclays and Bank of Scotland before becoming involved in the delivery of national access to finance programmes on behalf of the British Business Bank.

Judith is based in the North East of England and is a Non-Executive Director of Northstar Ventures UK and NEL Fund Managers, as well as Chair of the Alumni Advisory Board for the Hazan Venture Lab at Durham University.