Thursday 25 July 2013

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson has announced that the current deputy Mayor of London for Business Enterprise Kit Malthouse has been appointed as the new Chairman of London Partners, the mayor’s promotional organisation for London. It follows the decision by Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas to step down from the board after leading the company since its formation in January 2011.

Kit Malthouse was elected by Londoners to represent them on the London Assembly in 2008 and for the past five years has worked as Deputy Mayor for London tasked first with leading the fight against crime as Deputy Mayor for Policing, and now with leading on economic and business policy for City Hall.  He has worked as a Deputy Leader of Westminster City Council and his experience spans working for international city accountants as well as running his own business.

Commenting on his appointment Kit Malthouse said “London Partners has achieved terrific results over the past two years by attracting more foreign direct investment into London and championing London as one of the leading global capitals to visit and study in. I look forward to working with the rest of the board and the Executive group by building on this impressive record and amongst other things developing the new opportunities in the science and technology driven sectors for the capital. London constantly has to find new ways to cement its competitive advantage against other global capitals as we continue to work to deliver more jobs and growth for Londoners.”

The board of London Partners would like to take this opportunity to thank Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas for the commitment, time and leadership she has given in promoting London as one of the world’s great capitals. Dame Judith successfully oversaw the creation of London Partners, which, as a company has taken over the remits of three previous agencies – Think London, Visit London and Study London. In its first year the company made operational savings of £2million and the company now has a successful return on investment of 13:1. In the last year alone the work of the company has resulted in £257 million pounds in economic benefit for the capital.

 With funding for the company now secured up to at least 2018 Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas is resigning from the board to focus on other projects. Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas said “It has been has been an incredible two years championing London’s cause as Chairman of London Partners and I am proud to leave the company in such a strong position for the future. The Olympic and Paralympic Games has given London Partners a unique opportunity to showcase the city to the world and we are already witnessing the results of that with record tourism numbers in Q1 2013 and significant foreign direct investment coming into London.  I wish the company all the best as they strive to promote this great capital city to the rest of the world.”

Contact

Tamzen Isacsson
Head of Media and PR
Mobile: 07917372965
Tel:  020 7234 5766