Government defends £325,000 pay packet for Green Bank chief

London-based Shaun Kingsbury, who comes from his role as an investment partner at private equity firm Hudson Clean Energy Partners, has been recruited to the bank’s top job.

Kingsbury will be paid a salary of £325,000 per year, a figure that is “far below market rates”, according to a spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) .

The spokesman added: “Recruitment consultants specialising in this field have advised that the pay for comparable private sector roles to the GIB CEO would be more than £1 million.”

David Nish, the chief executive of Edinburgh-based Standard Life, joins the board as a non-executive director.

Other Scottish non-executives, who will each receive £25,000 per annum, include Isobel Sharp, a recently-retired senior technical partner at Deloitte, who is now a visiting professor and member of the advisory board at Edinburgh University’s business school, and Tessa Tennant, the Borders-based co-founder of the UK’s first equity investment fund for sustainable development, now called the Jupiter Ecology Fund. The other three directors are Professor Dame Julia King, vice-chancellor of Birmingham-based Aston University, Fred Maroudas, finance director of BAA’s Heathrow airport and chair of the UK Green Investments (UKGI) investment committee, and Tom Murley, head of the renewable energy team at venture capital firm HgCapital.

Lord Smith, chairman of the GIB, said: “Shaun brings a strong track record of leadership in private equity and low carbon finance.”

The new chief executive and the directors are expected to take up their roles by the end of October, ahead of the bank’s official launch, which is expected in November, subject to receiving state-aid approval.

Kingsbury said the bank would allocate capital to “projects that can both enhance economic competitiveness and provide leadership in environmental business performance”.