Education
Cleland studied philosophy, politics and economics at the University of Oxford and was sponsored by the Bank for an Master of Business Administration at Imperial College, London.
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Victoria Cleland
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She is the second woman to hold the post of Chief Cashier. She replaced Chris Salmon when he was appointed as Executive Director for Markets at the Bank of England. Cleland has worked for the Bank for about 20 years having first tried accountancy as a career.
Her first role at the Bank was in a department dealing with the financing of small businesses, followed by work in the wholesale market supervision division after which she moved to deal with graduate recruitment.
Cleland worked for three years on financial stability after which she set up the "special resolutions" section which dealt with banks at risk of failure following the recent financial crisis. She was closely involved with the Northern Rock nationalisation.
Cleland was Head of Notes from March 2010 and has been Director for Banknotes and Chief Cashier since March 2014. In her current role, Cleland is primarily responsible for ensuring that banks have the right amount and type of notes available at all times.
She is also responsible for preventing forgery and the controversial matter of the design of new notes.
In 2013, Cleland received on behalf of the Bank of England a petition organised by Caroline Criado-Perez to keep a woman on the reverse of Bank of England banknotes. To date, other than the portrait of Her Majesty The Queen on the obverse of all Bank of England notes only two historical women have appeared on the reverse, Elizabeth Fry on the current £5 and Florence Nightingale on the £10 issued back in 1975. As Chief Cashier, Cleland"s name and signature appears on all Bank of England banknotes except the £5 note which will not bear her signature until the new polymer issue is released later in 2016.
The Bank will continue to issue £5 notes with the signature of the previous Chief Cashier, Chris Salmon until the polymer note is issued into circulation.
Cleland has been a trustee of the Royal London Society for Blind People since 2012.
