The co-founder of Capital One, a senior Airbus executive and the woman behind Anglesey sea salt brand Halen Môn are among ten people named to help design Wales’s new development agency.
They join Jonathan Lewis, chair of the company that owns Swansea and Port Talbot docks, who was put in charge of the panel in July.
The announcement gives the project its first date. Adam Price, the cabinet minister responsible, says he expects an interim report from the panel early next year.
That is more than he could offer two months ago. Pressed in the Senedd in July on when the agency would exist, he replied: “I can’t give you a specific date, to be frank.”
The Welsh Government says the agency’s job will be to halve Wales’s productivity gap with the rest of the UK within ten years.
Mr Price said better productivity meant “creating better jobs for people, thereby putting more money in their pockets and raising living standards”.
Who is on the panel designing the new Welsh development agency
The vice chair is Sarah Williams-Gardener, a founding member of Starling Bank and chair of FinTech Wales.
Nigel Morris co-founded the credit card company Capital One and now runs venture capital firm QED Investors. Oriel Petry is senior vice president of Airbus UK.
From industry come La-Chun Lindsay, former managing director of GE Aviation Wales, and John Evans, former chief executive of offshore energy contractor Subsea7.
Economist Gerald Holtham, a visiting professor at Cardiff Metropolitan University, is joined by Gareth Noyes, who held senior roles at software firm Wind River Systems, and by Beren Kayali, co-founder of water storage start-up Deploy Tech.
Alison Lea-Wilson co-founded Halen Môn. Laura Doel, general secretary of TUC Cymru, is the one trade union voice on the panel.
All are unpaid. Mr Price said the group brought “a breadth of experience, diversity of perspective, Welsh expertise and international challenge”.
The question for Swansea: where will the new agency be based?
The panel will advise on the “form and functions” of the agency. The statement does not mention where it will be based.
That matters here. In June, Swansea Council leader Rob Stewart said he would press for a revived agency, or part of it, to be based in the city centre. The Welsh Government’s offices at Penllergaer were originally built for the old Welsh Development Agency, which was wound up in 2006.
The plans have also faced criticism for lacking detail. In July, Conservative Andrew RT Davies told the Senedd there was “too much blank space”. Mr Price committed then to a statutory body, legislation “fairly soon”, and an agency up and running during this Senedd term.
Mr Price says the panel “will not operate in isolation”, and that a programme of engagement with businesses and other organisations is being drawn up.
He will update the Senedd once the interim report arrives.
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