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Rachel Reeves has appointed women’s startup champion Alex DePledge as the UK Treasury’s first entrepreneurship advisor as the Prime Minister seeks to improve relations with the government with high-growth companies.
Depledge has established many companies, including construction technology company RESI, and works two days a week at the Treasury, helping to develop policies to increase startups over the fall budget.
Reeves’ allies acknowledge that while the Treasury has established contacts with the city of London and the trade agency, it needs to improve links with the country’s small but rapidly growing companies.
Depledge also spoke about the need to find new sources of funding to help businesses expand, telling the Financial Times last year that this is a particularly problematic issue for women entrepreneurs.
“Funding is the only thing that matters,” DePledge said. “Women don’t have a hard time starting a business and are struggling to grow. We don’t protect some of the UK economy, which has green shoots.”
The lack of financial access is one of the key issues Reeves is taking into consideration before her Mansion House speech in London next month and budget later in the year.
The Treasury said Depledge will consider “the important barriers facing businesses looking to launch or expand in the UK.”
Depledge told FT last year that women often run businesses in sectors where women don’t naturally attract large investments from private equity and venture capital.
She introduced Reeves before her speech to her speech last September, saying that the prime minister is a “breaking ball” on the glass ceiling after becoming the first woman to take on the role.
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Reeves said Wednesday: “Of the seven major developed countries of the G7, there is a long list of successful startups, scale-ups and small businesses across the UK, with the highest density of scale-ups.
“Having Alex on your team brings incredibly valuable expertise,” Reeves’ allies said Depregnage would be a contact for entrepreneurs for the Treasury.
The Bradford-born entrepreneur said he will take on the role of representing “a groundbreaking move that guides businesses that have grown at the heart of economic thinking.”
