Richard Weir

Richard has over 25 years experience as an IT professional in the financial services industry in the UK. He has worked for a number of major companies in the sector including HSBC, EDS, Norwich Union, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Virgin.

Through this time Richard acquired a very wide range of experience in IT and project management, learning the art of how to deliver major change within large organisations.

Richard’s forte is taking a pragmatic and flexible approach to solving business problems, based on a solid grounding in structured processes and methods, but also utilising highly developed interpersonal and team building skills.

Like Vince, Richard was one of the founder members of Virgin Direct, Richard Branson’s foray into financial services launched in 1995. Within the team, he initially led on ensuring high levels of user input to the design and build of systems, and user testing throughout the build and prior to launch. He was also programme manager for a number of initiatives, most notably the development and launch of the revolutionary Virgin One Account.

In 2002, Richard project managed the development and launch of Virginmoney.com - Virgin’s financial services web portal. He later became this separate company’s Director of Operations reporting to the CEO and helping to take the company from set up and launch to ‘business as usual’.

Subsequently, at Norwich Union, Richard established consistent working practices and provided leadership and direction for more than 200 application support staff across five locations, radically reducing systems downtime and increasing staff moral and user satisfaction.

At Bluecycle.com, Richard put the IT infrastructure, service management and development teams on to a firm foundation to enable the company to attract new investment and increase its growth.

Most recently as Business Development Director for the Royal Bank of Scotland he put in place change governance processes and led the implementation of the change portfolio for the One Account.

In partnership with Vince, Richard then set up Cepia Management in 2005.