Corporate Governance
Ulster Bank Ireland DAC
Ulster Bank Ireland DAC is committed to the highest standards of corporate governance, business integrity and professionalism in all its activities.
The Board is the principal decision-making forum for the company. It has overall responsibility for leading and controlling the company. Our Board approves the strategy and monitors performance. It has adopted a formal schedule of matters reserved for Board discussion that details key aspects of the company's affairs and this schedule is reviewed annually.
Capital Requirements Directive (CRDIV)
The fourth Capital Requirements Directive (CRD IV) requires an institution such as Ulster Bank Ireland DAC to include a compliance statement on its website in relation to certain articles contained in the Directive. Find out how Ulster Bank Ireland DAC complies with the requirements relating to governance, remuneration and reporting.
Martin Murphy - Chairman
Martin Murphy was appointed as an Independent Non-Executive director to the UBIDAC Board in July 2016. A Certified Bank Director (CBD), Martin is currently Interim Chairman at Ulster Bank, also chairs the Remuneration Committee, and is a member of the Audit, Risk and Nomination Committees.
Martin is also a board member of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) which manages Ireland's National Debt, Ireland's Strategic Investment Fund, and provides a range of asset and liability management services to Government. He is chair of the Remuneration Committee, the State Claims Agency Advisory Committee, and a member of the ISIF Investment Committee.
Martin also acts as a strategic advisor to a number of technology companies including Echelon Datacentres which he chairs, and Eishtec/Infosys where he was lead advisor to Eishtec during its acquisition by Infosys.
Previously Martin was Chairman and Chief Executive of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Ireland, whose operations spanned sales and services, international financial services, global technical support & research and development.
Martin serves on the board of the Smurfit Business School which is Ireland’s only triple accredited business school and is a former President of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, the leading business network organisation in Ireland.
He holds a BA.BAI(HONS) in Engineering and Mathematics and a MSc in Electronic Engineering from Trinity College Dublin.
Jane Howard – Chief Executive Officer
Jane Howard has worked in the financial services industry for more than 37 years. She has operated at Executive level for the last 14 years in risk management, and leading large scale operations and customer facing businesses. Jane’s previous role, to August 2018, was that of Managing Director, Personal Banking for RBS, one of the largest UK Banks.
Under Jane’s four year leadership, Personal Banking implemented a Financial Health check for customers, reshaped the network so that customers have more physical and digital ways to bank than ever before and launched a professional development programme to enable customer-facing colleagues achieve an externally recognised Professional Banking Certificate.
Paul Stanley – Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Finance Officer
Paul joined Ulster Bank from AIB in August 2013. He was previously the Acting CFO for AIB and a member of its Leadership Team, from 2011. Paul was Interim Chief Executive Officer from August 2015 to May 2016.
Rosemary Quinlan - Non Executive Director and Chair of Board Risk Committee
Rosemary is a qualified Chartered Director and has been a board director since 2006, and an independent board director since 2013. She has 30 years’ experience working in Financial Services.
Rosemary currently is the Chairperson of J.P. Morgan Markets Ltd (FCA) and J.P. Morgan Dublin PLC (CBI). She is also a director of J.P. Morgan Ireland PLC, where she is chair of the Board Risk Committee (BRC). Rosemary has been a member of the Ulster Bank Board since 2013 and Chair of Board Risk Committee. She is a member of the Ulster Bank Audit and Renumeration Committees
Rosemary is a member of the RSA Insurance Ireland DAC board since 2014 and chairs the Board Risk, Nominations and Renumeration Committees. Rosemary is a member of the Board of Dodge and Cox Funds Worldwide PLC and is the designated person for Organisational effectiveness (CP86)
Previously Rosemary has held board positions with Prudential International Assurance PLC and HSBC Securities Services Ireland DAC.
Rosemary is a Certified Bank Director (Institute of banking University College Dublin) and holds a B.Comm from University College Cork.
In her Executive career, Rosemary held roles with HSBC Bank PLC, ABN AMRO, Citibank and NatWest in Ireland, Amsterdam, London, Chicago and New York
Gervaise Slowey - Non Executive Director and Chair of Sustainable Banking Committee
Gervaise Slowey joined the UBIDAC Board on 11th April 2018.
Gervaise is one of Ireland’s leading business women with a proven track record in business transformation and growth of large scale commercial operations in both Ireland and International markets. She has built a reputation as a highly consumer focussed, strategic operator, with strong leadership skills capable of turning an organisation around.
Gervaise was Chief Executive and Board Director of Communicorp Group Ltd. for four years to the end of 2016, which was one of the largest independent media groups in Ireland, UK and Eastern Europe. Communicorp is the company behind the Newstalk, TodayFM, 98FM, Spin and Appliances Delivered brands in Ireland.
Prior to that she was Global Client Director for Ogilvy Worldwide, a leading communication services agency with over 21,000 employees where she most recently managed Ogilvy’s international Mondelez business across Europe, Asia, and Africa.
During her 15-year tenure with Ogilvy Worldwide (1997 – 2012) she worked extensively in both emerging and established markets on some of the world’s leading brands such as Milka, Toblerone, Coca Cola, Cadbury, and Kimberly Clark.
A Dublin City University Business graduate, Gervaise began her career in 1990 with CPC/Unilever in marketing. Gervaise has been a non-executive director of Eason PLC and its RemCo since 2012. Gervaise is also a board director for Wells Fargo Bank International, a Board Trustee of International Rice Research Institute (irri.org), and Council member of the Institute of Directors.
Senior Executive Committee Members
Jane Howard – Chief Executive Officer
Jane joined Ulster Bank Ireland DAC as CEO on 3rd September 2018. In addition to her role as CEO, she is President of the IOB for 2020 and is a member of the Irish Banking Culture Board.
Jane Howard has more than 40 years’ experience in the financial services industry across a wide range of functions, having served in personal banking, commercial banking, risk management and operations. She has operated at Executive level for more than 15 years and in her previous role, she led the NatWest Group’s Personal Bank through a period of significant and successful change and expansion.
Jane is a Certified Bank Director from the Institute of Banking, holds a degree in Banking and diplomas in Compliance and Culture & Ethics.
Paul Stanley – Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Finance Officer
Paul joined Ulster Bank from AIB in August 2013. He was previously the Acting CFO for AIB and a member of its Leadership Team, from 2011. Paul was Interim Chief Executive Officer from August 2015 to May 2016.
John Hennessy – Director of Risk
John Hennessy joined UBI DAC in September 2018. John was appointed Director of Risk in December 2018. He previously worked in a variety of senior risk roles in the Santander Group in Madrid, New York, Boston and London over the last 30 years.
John also worked in front office roles as a corporate banker and in asset backed securities. He started his career as a graduate trainee with Lloyds Bank in 1985.
Fiona McMahon – Director of Compliance
Fiona served as Head of Supervision at the Central Bank of Ireland, and over the last five years, she has led a variety of Supervisory teams across Life Assurance, International Banking, Consumer Protection and Investigations, having worked at the Central Bank for sixteen years.
Fiona brings extensive regulatory and compliance knowledge and experience across the SSM framework and is a member of the SSM Centralised On-site Inspections Network, the EBA Standing Committee on Oversight and Practices, in addition to the Financial Stability Committee of the Central Bank. Previously, Fiona qualified as a Chartered Accountant whilst at PwC.
Sheamus Causer - Chief Technology and Information Officer
With over 25 year’s experience, Sheamus has held a number of senior Information Technology, Data Management and Operations roles in the global financial services industry. Sheamus' prior experience, including leading Deutsche Bank’s global analytics function and the provision of technology consulting support to a range of leading local and international banks, has given him hands on insight into technology, payments and data best practice. Prior to Deutsche Bank, Sheamus was Director of Risk Analytics in Deloitte Ireland.
Australian born, Sheamus holds MSc and MBA qualifications, and was recently awarded the accolade of Certified Director by the Institute of Directors in Ireland.
Derval McDonagh, Director of Human Resources
Derval commenced in role as Director of HR, UBIDAC on the 28th November 2018. Derval is responsible for developing our People strategy, a core part of which is to make Ulster Bank a great place to work.
Derval is a highly experienced HR professional, with 20 years experience in financial services, most recently as Head of HR at the Central Bank of Ireland. Prior to joining the Central Bank, Derval was Head of HR at Danske Bank and she has worked across retail, business, corporate and institutional banking in both the Republic and Northern Ireland.
Derval achieved a Bachelor degree in Commerce from NUI Galway and went on to complete her Masters of Business Studies (MBS), Human Resources Development from the Smurfit School in UCD.
Eddie Cullen - Managing Director, Commercial Banking
Eddie was appointed to the role of Managing Director, Commercial Banking in May 2015. Before taking on his current role Eddie was Managing Director, Corporate & Institutional Banking for Ulster Bank. Eddie joined Ulster Bank in 1993 and served in a variety of roles. Prior to joining Ulster Bank, Eddie worked for KPMG specialising in Corporate Tax.
Ciarán Coyle – Managing Director, Personal Banking
Ciarán has extensive banking experience, joining Ulster Bank from AIB in 2005, he worked in the Retail Bank before moving to the Services division where he held a number of leadership roles including Head of Ulster Bank Change for three years. Here he worked on centralising all change activity and delivering all of the Bank's regulatory and transformation programmes. Most recently he held the role of Head of Banking Operations where he led a large team responsible for the day to day operations of the bank.
Damien Daly – Director of Strategy, Innovation and Customer Experience
Damien was appointed as Ulster Bank Head of Customer Experience & Products (CE&P) in April 2018. He has extensive experience in the financial services industry across retail banking, capital markets and treasury management.
Damien joins us from Bank of Ireland where he held a number of senior roles over 13 years, including most recently Managing Director of Bank of Ireland UK’s AA Financial Service Business and a member of the BOI UK Executive Management Team.
Elaine Wignell – Chief Controls Officer
Elaine joined Ulster Bank in 2018 as the Head of Control Transformation to drive the UBIDAC controls agenda forward. Her current focus is to continue to support UBIDAC to strengthen its control environment, across the Non-Financial Risk disciplines.
Before joining Ulster Bank, Elaine worked for the NatWest Group 30 years in a variety of roles in Personal and Commercial Banking, before moving to Internal Audit (IA). Elaine led both the IA Commercial Banking and Services’ Operations team in the UK, alongside the global IA operations portfolio. Bringing extensive risk and control experience back into the First Line of Defence, she led various Controls teams in NatWest, including Personal Banking Services, Capital Resolution Services, Customer Service & Operations, (NatWest Markets) and International Banking Service & Operations globally. She has an MSC in Management to include risk management.
Elizabeth Arnett – Director of Corporate Affairs
Elizabeth Arnett joined Ulster Bank in April 2017 having held a variety of leadership and communications roles across the NGOs, consultancy, semi-state and private sector businesses throughout her career.
For 14 years Elizabeth worked for RPS Group where she established the Project Communications division which specialised in managing communications and community engagement on some of the most high profile engineering and environmental projects in the state. More recently Elizabeth was Head of Corporate Affairs and Environmental Regulation at Irish Water.
Elizabeth is passionate about organisational culture and strategy and how getting both of these things right achieves the best outcomes for customers. She has a BAgr Sc, an Msc Agr, is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of Engineers Ireland and has recently completed a Professional Diploma in organizational culture from UCD.