The MoneyLab Blog

Sam McArthur appointed as adviser to Sapphire's board

vasiliki@sapphirecapitalpartners.co.uk (Vasiliki Carson) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 14:47:41 GMT

Sapphire is pleased to announce the appointment ofSamMcArthur as an Adviser to its Board of Directors.

Samis an experienced business leader with a track record of leading both high-growth and turnaround businesses across a diverse range of sectors, including banking, manufacturing, venture capital, importation and wholesaling. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated a consistent commitment to building high-performing teams and cultivating cultures that enable sustainable business success.

Business Relief and Estate Planning: Understanding the April 2026 Changes

vincent@sapphirecapitalpartners.co.uk (Vincent Robinson) — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 08:54:35 GMT

Inheritance tax (IHT) has become a bigger concern for many families across the UK, with estates above available allowances facing a potential 40% charge. Against that backdrop, Business Relief (BR) has long been an important estate planning tool.

Women in Finance: A Belfast point of view

vasiliki@sapphirecapitalpartners.co.uk (Vasiliki Carson) — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 06:01:26 GMT

At Sapphire , we operate at what might feel like a considerable distance from the boardrooms of London's financial district. As a small-scope Alternative Investment Fund Manager based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, we might be forgiven for thinking that the big conversations happening at HM Treasury level don't quite apply to us. But they do, perhaps more acutely than many realise.

The 2025 HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter Annual Review and the accompanying webinars hosted to discuss its findings reminded me why every firm has a stake in this agenda. When we layer in the academic research on board diversity and corporate innovativeness, the picture becomes both more compelling and more urgent.

The Numbers Tell a Complicated Story

The headline figure is encouraging: average female representation in senior management across the 210 Charter signatories analysed has reached 37%, up from 36% in 2024. This is genuine, documented progress from the 27% recorded when the Charter launched in 2016.

But as Chancellor Rachel Reeves noted plainly in her foreword to the review, a steady one percentage point per year is not enough. At this rate, parity remains two decades away.

For smaller firms like ours, the challenge is different in character but no less real. We don't have the resources of a global investment bank, nor the HR infrastructure of a major insurer. In a small team, one departure or one poor hiring decision can move the dial dramatically. That makes intentionality not just admirable, it makes it essential.

The Insurance Sector's 40% Milestone: What They Did Right

One of the most genuinely exciting findings from the 2025 review is that the insurance sector has become the first of the four largest Charter sectors to reach an average of 40% female representation in senior management. This didn't happen by accident.

During the webinar, panellists Karen Blake MBE, Rachel Osikoya, and Cheryl Toner pointed to several interwoven factors: strong visible leadership from figures such as Dame Amanda Blanc at Aviva and Tara Foley, a collective industry commitment through initiatives and a cultural shift that made diversity a genuine business priority. Notably, 47% of accountable executives in the insurance sector are now female, up from 40% in 2024.

The academic literature backs this up. Research published inHumanities and Social Sciences Communications (Hakovirta et al, 2020) found that boards with higher female representation demonstrate better share liquidity, stronger oversight, and greater price informativeness. The insurance sector's success story suggests that when firms treat gender diversity as a genuine strategic lever rather than a compliance exercise, meaningful results follow.

For us in Belfast, the lesson scales: culture, leadership visibility, and consistent accountability mechanisms are the drivers of change, not organisational size.

UK Banking's Plateau and the Transformation Challenge

In sharp contrast, the UK banking sector has been stuck at 38% since 2022, making it the only sector to remain entirely flat year-on-year, with nearly half of UK bank signatories actually decreasing female representation during the reporting period.

The primary culprit is organisational restructuring, cited as the most common reason signatories missed their 2025 targets. The webinar introduced a concept that resonated strongly: the shift from "business as usual" to "transformation as usual." Change is no longer an episodic event; it is the permanent condition of operating in financial services.

This creates a particular risk for gender equity. When organisations restructure, women who are more likely to be working flexibly, in mid-pipeline roles, or in support functions can find themselves disproportionately disadvantaged through entirely gender-neutral-sounding processes.

Karen Blake MBE, Rachel Osikoya, and Cheryl Toner identified four key success factors for managing transformation without sacrificing diversity progress:

Embed equity as a design principle in change processes from the outset.
Use transparent, skills-based criteria for redundancy and redeployment decisions.
Hold leaders accountable through governance structures that track demographic outcomes through restructures.
Build inclusive transformation into systems before restructures occur, not during or after.

As a small firm navigating a changing regulatory landscape and evolving client expectations, the discipline of embedding equity into change (rather than hoping it survives change) is something we take seriously.

The AI Dimension: Opportunity or Amplified Risk?

Perhaps the most forward-looking discussion in the webinar centred on artificial intelligence. The sector remains in early-stage adoption, but the implications for gender equity are already visible, and not all of them are positive.

On the opportunity side, AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot are reportedly saving part-time workers approximately one hour per day. Given that women represent around 90% of the part-time workforce at some larger firms, this is a meaningful and perhaps underappreciated development.

The risk side demands equal attention. AI systems trained on historical data will, by definition, reflect historical biases. If past promotion decisions underweighted women, and the data across financial services suggests they did, then AI tools will perpetuate that underweighting at scale and at speed. The panel called for algorithmic accountability, rigorous auditing of AI tools for bias, transparent work allocation in technology projects, and governance structures that embed diversity considerations into AI stage-gate processes from the outset.

The academic research on board diversity reinforces this. The study comparing the boards of the world's most innovative companies with major bioeconomy firms found that more innovative companies demonstrated greater diversity of age, ethnicity, and educational background, not just gender. The argument is not simply moral but strategic: diverse perspectives produce better decisions. If AI systems are shaping decisions about talent and promotion, then diverse oversight of those systems is not optional; it is a precondition of good governance.

The Board Diversity Imperative: More Than a Numbers Game

The academic research offers a useful corrective to the tendency to reduce diversity to a single metric. Analysing the boards of the world's ten most innovative companies alongside the ten largest bioeconomy firms, researchers found that the most innovative companies had greater ethnic diversity, broader age distribution, higher average educational attainment, and more engineering graduates. Notably,gender diversity was identical between the two groups, (both at 25% female) suggesting that gender alone does not account for the innovation gap.

This is not an argument against gender diversity. The research is clear that boards with higher female representation perform better across multiple metrics, and that at least three female directors are needed for any meaningful positive influence. The point is that gender diversity is necessary but not sufficient. True board effectiveness requires diversity of thought, background, experience, discipline, and perspective.

For Sapphire, this resonates directly. Operating at the intersection of alternative investments, ESG considerations, and an evolving regulatory environment in post-Brexit Northern Ireland, we need the broadest possible range of perspectives informing our decisions. Northern Ireland's talent pool is genuinely diverse and genuinely underutilised by the financial services sector. One quiet advantage of being based here is that we are not fishing in the same exhausted pond as firms competing for the same narrow profiles in London. That is an advantage we intend to use.

Flexible Working: The Invisible Risk

One of the newer areas of focus in the 2025 review is flexible working data. Two thirds of signatories now capture data on flexible working arrangements in their senior management population, but only 10% provided detailed breakdowns, and the review notes a significant gap between formal and informal flexible arrangements.

This matters. If senior women are working flexibly but that flexibility is not captured in data, then promotion processes and succession planning may be operating on the assumption that they aren't. The invisible flexible worker is systematically undervalued.

As a small firm, flexibility is often a matter of conversation and trust rather than formal policy. That informality can be a strength but it requires conscious effort to ensure it isn't producing quiet disadvantages for women in our team and networks.

Our Commitment

The HMT Women in Finance Charter's principles of accountability, transparency, targets, and a genuine link between leadership behaviour and outcomes are not the exclusive province of large institutions. They are the building blocks of good governance at any scale.

As Sapphire, we are committed to being intentional about diversity in every hiring, promotion, and advisory decision; treating flexibility as the norm and ensuring it is valued rather than penalised; engaging critically with AI tools as we adopt them; and supporting an ecosystem that recognises the business case for diverse leadership as empirically grounded, not aspirational.

The 2025 Women in Finance Charter Annual Review is a record of genuine progress and, read honestly, of how much further there is to go. We read it not as a critique of others but as a prompt for our own reflection.

From Sapphire's perspective, we're watching, learning, and working to do our part.

Below is a video summary of this article.

Climate-related reporting, SRS disclosures & the SDR labelling regime

vasiliki@sapphirecapitalpartners.co.uk (Vasiliki Carson) — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 13:19:58 GMT

As regulatory frameworks tighten and investor scrutiny intensifies, climate-related disclosures have evolved from voluntary commitments to essential components of financial transparency and risk management.

What AI Means for the Transparency of Your Fund Reporting

mingze@sapphirecapitalpartners.co.uk (Ming Ze Tang) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 10:19:55 GMT

At Sapphire, we have always believed that informed investors are better partners. That belief is now driving one of the most significant technological investments in our firm’s history.

Sapphire's Portfolio Company QPLAY to Launch First-Ever PISCES Liquidity Event on JP Jenkins Private Market

jared@sapphirecapitalpartners.co.uk (Jared Hamilton) — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 16:36:02 GMT

Sapphire can today announce that QPLAY, a portfolio company held within the Velocity Capital EIS Fund managed by Sapphire, will participate in the first-ever PISCES liquidity event on the JP Jenkins Private Market.

The landmark event marks a significant milestone for UK private markets and highlights Sapphire’s commitment to providing innovative liquidity pathways for high-growth portfolio companies.

Under the new PISCES (Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System) framework, introduced less than a year ago, eligible investors will be able to buy and sell shares in eligible private companies through regulated trading windows. JP Jenkins secured its PISCES operator licence in November 2025 and will host the inaugural event with QPLAY as the launch company.

The collaboration between Sapphire and JP Jenkins establishes a new route for Sapphire-related portfolio companies to access secondary-market liquidity while remaining privately held.

QPLAY is the creator of Outsmarted, a hybrid board game combining physical gameplay with a connected digital ecosystem. The game has sold over one million copies worldwide, reached more than five million players, and launched regional editions in multiple international markets.

Through this initiative, Sapphire aims to expand the options available to founders and early investors by enabling controlled liquidity without requiring a full public listing.

What a medieval woman taught me about modern leadership

vasiliki@sapphirecapitalpartners.co.uk (Vasiliki Carson) — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 06:04:45 GMT

When we think about Lady Elizabeth de Clare, the formidable medieval heiress and foundress of Clare College Cambridge, it’s tempting to imagine her as a character in a world of lords, castles, and chroniclers, conjuring up images from hit TV series like The Game of Thrones. But if you were to ask what she was really like, the answer might surprise you.

Knowing Her Own Mind
Lady Elizabeth once said that “we ought to know better than others what our intentions are.” That conviction of self-awareness and purpose feels deeply modern. She knew who she was and refused to let others define her. Despite a life marked by political turbulence and personal loss, she remained remarkably clear-headed about her role, her responsibilities, and her values.

Loyal to a Fault
Her loyalty to friends and allies was unwavering, though not always profitable. In an era when alliances were currency, Lady Elizabeth’s personal bonds often outweighed business sense. Yet that same devotion gave her a rare reputation for trustworthiness. Even after her death, her venture partners and estate managers were treated as extended family.

The Art of Keeping Count
Lady Elizabeth was meticulous, almost parsimonious, in her record-keeping. Her household books reveal a woman who believed in accountability: noting who owed what, to whom, and when it was due. Every penny and promise mattered. Her approach was pragmatic, not romantic, which is the hallmark trait of a woman who understands power in practical terms.

The Long View
Despite devastating losses including imprisonment and mistreatment by both King Edward II and her third husband Sir Damory, Elizabeth endured because she thought in decades, not days. Even when stripped of favour, fortune and freedom, she managed her affairs with strategic patience, gradually restoring her wealth and autonomy. Throughout her life, and particularly after the death of her first husband, the Earl of Ulster John de Burgh, Lady Elizabeth often relied on what we might now call “strategic hibernation” to navigate political upheaval. By stepping back from public life, she conserved her energy, reassessed her position, and deepened relationships with those who mattered most. This deliberate retreat, I would argue, enabled her to overcome adversity and ultimately reclaim her estate.

Balancing Heaven and Earth
Elizabeth recognised the delicate interplay between the secular and the divine. Her piety wasn’t performative, it was practical. She saw charity not as abstract virtue, but as a way to strengthen community and reciprocity. She gave to those she understood, empathised with, and could depend upon.

Empathy as Strategy
What truly set Elizabeth apart was her self-awareness. She knew her limitations but also knew how to overcome them by making efforts to understanding others. She discerned what they wanted and used that knowledge to negotiate fairer treatment and lasting alliances.

The Voice of British Values
Unlike many of her contemporaries, Lady Elizabeth’s influence stayed close to home. She didn’t seek foreign ventures or distant pilgrimages. Her world was the British Isles, which makes her legacy indelibly English. In her restraint, stewardship, and rootedness, she embodied what we might now identify cornerstone British values: duty, pragmatism, and quiet resilience. Echoes of Lady Elizabeth's legacy can certainly be felt in Victorian moral values, particularly around education and community service.

A Love of Learning
Elizabeth’s curiosity reached beyond her station. She explored medicine, surgery, and even the intricate politics of the Vatican. This breadth of interest became the soul of Clare College: a place that celebrates balance between the arts, sciences, and theology rather than narrow specialisation.

A platform and a Purpose

Lady Elizabeth used her title, wealth, and social position to build something enduring. Her estates opened doors, but it was her insight and empathy that turned privilege into legacy. Clare College stands today not just as a monument to her generosity, but as a reflection of her worldview: intellectually curious, ethically grounded, and elegantly self-aware.

Below is a video summary of the life of Lady Clare.

Advancing AI in investment management: Welcoming Ming Ze Tang

vasiliki@sapphirecapitalpartners.co.uk (Vasiliki Carson) — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 07:52:02 GMT

We’re delighted to welcome Ming Ze Tang who is our new Digital Platform Development Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Associate. Ming Ze will be leading our next phase of data-driven innovation.

A new KTP collaboration with Queen’s University Belfast and Innovate UK

We’re pleased to launch a new KTP between Sapphire, Queen’s University Belfast, and Innovate UK.

KTPs are a UK-wide programme, supported by Innovate UK, that connect forward-thinking businesses with academic expertise. Through this collaboration, we are working closely with specialist researchers at Queen’s to accelerate the development of a digital platform that will transform how we manage data and support our investors.

Over the next 24 months, this partnership will bring together academic insight and Sapphire’s hands-on fund management experience, with Ming Ze acting as the bridge between the two.

HMT Women in Finance Charter: Momentum or plateau?

vasiliki@sapphirecapitalpartners.co.uk (Vasiliki Carson) — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 16:55:35 GMT

Today’s HM Treasury Women in Finance town hall indicated to me just how important the next decade will be for gender balance in UK financial services.

Launched in 2016 to drive senior female representation across the sector, HM Treasury's Women in Finance Charter has grown from 68 signatories in 2017 to more than 400 today, spanning banks, insurers, asset managers, advisers and infrastructure providers. Women now hold around 35% of senior roles among signatories, up from 27% in 2017. This signifies meaningful progress in under a decade.

But the mood in the room was far from complacent. The current rate of improvement is only about one percentage point a year, with some firms moving backwards and a visible plateau as organisations approach their self‑set targets. The message from the Treasury was blunt: "business as usual" such as mentoring schemes, networks, flexible working policies will not get the sector where it needs to be. Boards are expected to interrogate why momentum has slowed and what structural shifts are required.

Politically, the Charter is moving up the agenda rather than fading into the background. Economic Secretary Lucy Rigby is now leading the efforts, backed by Chancellor Rachel Reeves. This signals the importance of the Charter's work as well as increasing expectations on transparency, targets and delivery.

The economic argument is becoming harder to ignore. According to HMT statistics:

Women’s economic inclusion has accounted for roughly 40% of UK growth since 2000.
A further 5% increase in female employment could boost the economy by an estimated £125 billion a year.

For a sector that prices risk and allocates capital, under‑utilising female talent is being reframed as an mis-pricing problem; one that directly affects productivity, innovation and long‑term returns. Internationally, the UK’s approach is being watched and copied: the Charter has already inspired similar initiatives in Ireland, Luxembourg and Norway.

A key theme of the town hall was delivery. Dame Debbie Crosby, CEO of Nationwide, has been appointed as the new Women in Finance Champion, succeeding Dame Amanda Blanc. Her focus is on how firms actually run. That means:

rethinking leadership models for an AI‑enabled, volatile environment;
designing career paths that keep women in the workforce during peak caring years; and
making the link between diverse senior teams, better decision‑making and growth.

It also means addressing the external pushback on diversity initiatives, keeping the conversation grounded in evidence rather than rhetoric, and bringing men in as active sponsors rather than bystanders. Regional hubs such as Leeds, Manchester, Cardiff and Glasgow are firmly in scope too, with a push to ensure progress is not confined to London headquarters.

Crucially, the Charter is widening its lens. Future work will look at how AI could reshape roles and opportunity pathways, with a deliberate focus on avoiding the replication of old biases in new systems. There is also growing recognition that gender outcomes are intertwined with class and socioeconomic background. This raises deeper questions about who gets to enter, stay and lead in financial services.

For Sapphire Capital Partners, the learning is clear in that the conversation has moved on from “why diversity?” to “what structures and incentives are you putting in place to deliver it?”. Those that respond early and thoughtfully have the opportunity not just to contribute to a more inclusive sector, but to build stronger governance, sharper decision‑making and more resilient performance for the decade ahead.

This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest.

Below is a video summary of this article.

Sapphire Announces Liquidity Solution for Portfolio Company

jared@sapphirecapitalpartners.co.uk (Jared Hamilton) — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 15:27:28 GMT

Sapphire announces that QPLAY Ltd has become the first portfolio company to participate in its strategic collaboration with JP Jenkins. This announcement is intended to provide factual information regarding corporate developments within the Sapphire portfolio.