Maria Darby-Walker

Independent Non-Executive Director

Appointed: July 2024

Member of Risk Committee.

Maria was appointed to the Board in July 2024.

Experience

Maria Darby-Walker is passionate about working for organisations with a focus on corporate purpose, good culture, and sustainability. She is an expert in stakeholder engagement – investors, employees, customers, media, regulators. She has an executive background in marketing, corporate reputation and investor relations covering financial services, aerospace, manufacturing, and mining.

Maria is currently the senior non-executive director and Chair of the Remuneration Committee of the Aim listed Personal Group Holdings plc, an insurance and technology enabled employee service provider in the UK. She is also the Senior Independent Director and Chair of the Remuneration Committee at the privately owned SME Challenger Bank Redwood Bank Ltd.

On her various boards, she is responsible for the ESG and climate change agenda as well as being the Employee Representative Director. Separately she is an angel investor in women’s fashion group Sosandar – helping raise £2m in funds to launch the business in 2016.

She enjoys the world of academia and is a Visiting Fellow of the University of Oxford where she participates in research regarding the role of business in society; she is a speaker at various university events on such subjects as business ethics and the power of soft influence in the Boardroom.

More personally, she is passionate about animals and has recently become a trustee on National Park Rescue in Africa where she can contribute to the conservation of wildlife and protect biodiversity more broadly.