The Royal Bank of Scotland has today (1 October 2026) announced the appointment of Catriona Penny as its Venture Banking Director, expanding its support to Scotland’s most ambitious high growth companies and the investors backing them.
Venture Banking supports founders and investors at critical moments of growth, providing specialist capabilities – including deep sector expertise and flexible capital solutions - helping to reinforce Scotland’s position as a leading destination for innovation and investment.
The key role will see Catriona focus on helping high growth, venture backed and innovation or tech-led businesses in Scotland to connect with and attract the capital they need to expand and compete globally. She will work with a team across the UK which combines regional and sectoral expertise, while pulling in support from other areas of the Group, such as the Royal Bank Accelerator, and partnerships, such as with Amazon Web Services.
Catriona brings a wealth of experience over two decades in the financial services industry in Edinburgh and London with Lloyds Banking Group and Virgin Money. She was most recently Senior Director for Growth and Acquisition Finance at Virgin Money, where she focused on providing lending of up to £10 million to high growth, venture capital backed, UK based companies.
The appointment follows the publication last month of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s ‘From Innovation to Impact: Translating the UK's Untapped Innovation Cohort into Regional Growth report’. The report showed that Scotland punched above the UK average on commercialisation of innovation but also identified 358 potential high growth Scottish businesses that had not secured follow-on investment, exit or demonstrated a scale up signal.
It also builds on the Royal Bank of Scotland’s support for the innovation economy. This year it has already announced expanded partnerships with the University of Edinburgh’s AI accelerator, Glasgow based deep tech accelerator, STAC, and legal firm, Harper Macleod, to support startups and spinouts. The Royal Bank has committed to supporting 5,000 founders in 2026 alone, more than in the last ten years combined and in June they became the first Scottish bank to offer lending against Intellectual Property.
Catriona’s appointment will be announced at the 2026 Female Founders Growth Summit hosted at the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Gogarburn offices in Edinburgh. The Summit, in its third year, is part of the public and private sector partnership campaign Pathways Forward, which aims to tackle gender imbalance in entrepreneurship. Last year’s event brough together over 200 female founders and was the biggest event of its type in Scotland.
Jenny Edwards, Head of Venture Banking, NatWest Group, said: “I’m delighted to welcome Catriona onboard and to expand our Venture Banking offering to Scotland’s founders and investors.
“Our Venture Banking team brings together specialist expertise, strong networks and partnerships and tailored financing solutions to turbocharge our most exciting, high growth businesses.
“Establishing dedicated Venture Banking coverage in Scotland builds on the foundations we’ve laid through our accelerator and university partnerships, giving founders and investors specialist support to help promising businesses grow across the region.
Catriona Penny, Venture Banking Relationship Director, Royal Bank of Scotland, said: “This is an exciting time to be joining Venture Banking, which will strengthen our offering and the broader Scottish ecosystem’s support for entrepreneurs scaling their business.
“Scotland has incredible opportunities for high growth firms across a range of sectors, including energy transition, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and digital technologies.
“And with only one in five founders in Scotland being female, we know that one of the biggest opportunities is in encouraging and supporting more women to start and scale their own business.”
Image of Catriona Penny (JPG, 44 KB)
Image of Jenny Edwards (PNG, 2 MB)
