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Dame Alison Rose, the former NatWest chief executive who departed last year in the midst of the Nigel Farage “debanking” scandal, has joined Mishcon de Reya, the law firm that represented her in a subsequent pay dispute with the lender.
Mishcon on Tuesday announced Rose’s appointment as an adviser to its equity diversity and inclusion committee, with responsibilities including mentoring “a small number of partners”.
Rose resigned from the high-street lender in July last year following a free speech controversy ignited by the closure of Farage’s account at Natwest’s private banking subsidiary Coutts, a move the populist rightwing politician claimed had been made for political reasons.
Farage, who has since been elected as an MP for Reform, subsequently obtained a dossier that showed Coutts’ reputational risk committee had accused him of “pandering to racists” and being a “disingenuous grifter”, which was “at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation”.
Rose ended up forfeiting £7.6mn in outstanding pay and bonuses she could have been due from the bank because the board judged that she did not qualify as a “good leaver”.
“Advisers of Alison’s calibre and leadership are rare and we couldn’t be happier that we will enjoy the benefit of her expertise, particularly given our commitment to delivering on our ambitious EDI targets,” said Vanessa Dewhurst, partner and chief people officer at Mishcon.
Rose, who received her damehood in 2023, is one of the UK’s highest-profile female business leaders and is known for her focus on diversity and inclusion. She led a government review into female entrepreneurship that was known as the “Rose” review until her name was axed in the wake the scandal.
Rose left NatWest after admitting to having inaccurately briefed a BBC journalist that Coutts had closed Farage’s account for purely commercial reasons.
An independent review by law firm Travers Smith later found that while Coutts’ decision to cut ties with Farage was primarily commercial and lawful, it had failed to communicate the decision properly and then mishandled his complaint.
NatWest has since appointed Paul Thwaite, the former head of its commercial bank, as chief executive.
Thwaite, a Liverpudlian who like Rose has spent most of his career at the state-backed bank, has come to “represent a view” that “NatWest seems to have become quite sidelined in this focus on ‘purpose’,” according to one person close to the bank.
Rose took another advisory role at private equity firm Charterhouse earlier this year.