Virgin Money has appointed Sarah Wilkinson as chief operating officer.

She joins from Thomson Reuters, where she is the chief information officer and head of TR Labs, Thomson Reuters’ technology research and innovation centres worldwide. 

Prior to joining Thomson Reuters, Ms Wilkinson was CEO of NHS Digital, responsible for systems and data for health and social care nationally, and before that was CIO at The Home Office.

In her earlier career, Sarah spent 23 years in financial services during which she held CIO roles at Credit Suisse, UBS, Deutsche Bank and Lehman Brothers.

She is a member of the audit, risk and compliance committee of Kings College London and holds advisory positions at ITV, Our Future Health and the Department of Computing at Imperial College.

Ms Wilkinson said: “Virgin Money’s digital transformation journey is well underway. I’m delighted to join the bank at this exciting time to help deliver its strategic ambition to be the UK’s best digital bank and bring innovative new customer propositions to market to support its growth ambitions.” 

David Duffy, Virgin Money CEO, said: “Sarah brings leadership expertise in delivering change, innovation and digital customer experience, and has a strong track record of digital transformation.

“Along with her extensive knowledge of financial services, this will enable us to build on the good progress we’ve made in aligning our customer touch points, operations and technology, as we focus on continually improving the services we provide to customers.”

Ms Wilkinson will join Virgin Money at the start of 2023. Her new role will combine the existing roles of Fraser Ingram, chief digital and innovation officer, and Fergus Murphy, chief customer experience officer. Mr

Ingram decided to leave Virgin Money earlier this year and will remain in role until Ms Wilkinson joins. Mr Murphy has agreed to remain with Virgin Money to support a number of strategic activities.