FINANCE industry stalwart Mark Tennant was yesterday named as the new chairman of industry body Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE).
The senior adviser to investment bank JP Morgan can boast a 36-year career spanning several areas of financial services, including investment banking, fund management and pensions. His international experience includes time working in Edinburgh, Lon
don, the US and Hong Kong.
Tennant succeeds John Campbell, the managing director of Edinburgh-based State Street Investment Manager Services Europe. Last year, Campbell announced he was stepping down from the unpaid role, which he has held since mid-2003.
Yesterday's appointment was widely welcomed by the industry, which has experienced unprecedented change and upset in the past 18 months.
Angela Knight, chief executive of the British Bankers Association, said: "He will do a very good job. He is very well known and very well respected. Knowledgeable yes, but he has the right sort of attitude – he is very good at bringing people together.
"In a role such as the chair of SFE, you want somebody who knows people and who has worked in lots of areas. He will bring profile to Scotland in the right sort of way."
Bryan Johnson, director of broker and wealth management firm Bell Lawrie – of which Tennant was chairman in the 1980s – said: "Excellent appointment. He is extremely motivating, which is exactly what we need."
After seven years in the Scots Guards, Tennant launched his career in financial services having worked in senior roles at a range of international financial groups.
Tennant, who takes up the SFE post on 24 August, spent 13 years with Chase Manhattan Bank (latterly JP Morgan), opening the Edinburgh office of Chase in 1991 and then moving to the US as head of strategy and finance for the custody division. In 1996 he returned to London where until September 2004 he was head of strategic planning for Europe and Asia.
He is a senior adviser to JP Morgan and a member of the board of T Rowe Price Global Investor Services. He is chairman of the management consultancy, Bluerock, chairman of Money Portal and a non-executive director of Foreign and Colonial Private Equity Trust.
Tennant, who lives in Elgin and plays the bagpipes, said: "Our industry has, understandably, been under intense scrutiny over the last 18 months and I have admired the way SFE has responded to that.
"But we still have a long way to go before the trust so essential to successful financial services is fully restored and I relish the chance to contribute to SFE's continuing efforts to make that happen."
