Jobs chief takes top banking post

The chairman of the Government’s main jobs creation agency in the North is to become chairman of the Ulster Bank, it was announced today.

Industrial Development Board chief Dr Alan Gillespie will take over the banking post when Sir George Quigley steps down on July 1, the bank said.

For Dr Gillespie it is a return to his banking roots. Originally from east Belfast, the 50-year-old merchant banker has worked his way through New York, Geneva and London.

He is said to have amassed a personal fortune of £50m when the leading merchant bank Goldman Sachs, of which he was one of 219 partners, was floated on the stock exchange two years ago.

The Ulster bank is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland group and its chairman, Sir George Mathewson, said today he was delighted Dr Gillespie had accepted the chairmanship of the subsidiary.

‘‘He brings to the post a proven track record in investment banking, an acute knowledge of a wide variety of businesses, and an intimate experience of economic development, to which financial institutions have a vital contribution to make.

‘‘He is well equipped to enable Ulster Bank to build on the excellent performance of recent years.’’

After his retirement from Goldman Sachs in 1999 Dr Gillespie took on the role he now fulfils for the Government as chief executive of the Commonwealth Development Corporation in London.

He has been a member of the Industrial Development Board in Belfast since 1995, serving as vice chairman for two years and chairman for the past four. He is set to relinquish that post.

The Northern Ireland devolved administration is currently working on a plan to merge the IDB and other jobs agencies in the province into a single super agency.