James Coppin
Biography
James joined UK Government Investments (formerly the Shareholder Executive) in March 2014. He has worked on a variety of corporate finance and governance projects, including government investments into industry and government asset sales.
His governance work has included serving as the Shareholder appointed Non-Executive Director on the Board of Ordnance Survey Limited, Great Britain’s national mapping agency, and on the Board of BIS (Postal Services Act 2011) Company Limited, a holding company for certain real estate, private equity and high yield bond assets.
Major government sales worked on include the 2 public equity offerings of Royal Mail shares that removed Royal Mail from public sector ownership and advising the Department for Transport on Network Rail’s sale of around 5,000 railway arches. Corporate finance projects have included advising the Department of Health and Social Care on transactions relating to the provision of indemnity cover for GPs and working with the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce on negotiating agreements with vaccine manufacturers to secure vaccines and manufacturing capacity as part of the UK’s response to COVID-19. In June 2021, James was awarded an OBE for his services to the Vaccine Taskforce in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Prior to joining UKGI, James spent 10 years working in corporate finance, first on the sell side in investment banking and, immediately prior to joining UKGI, on the buy side, at a hedge fund. He started his career at Bank of America, working in London and New York.
James holds an Economics degree from St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.
Non-Executive Director
A non-executive director (NED) is an independent member of the National Housing Bank board. They provide strategic oversight and independent challenge to executive decisions, drawing on external expertise and experience to support effective governance of the organisation.