Josephine Clare Valentine, Baroness Valentine is a Crossbench member of the British House of Lords. Baroness Valentine's career spans the city, industry, campaigning and regeneration. She now has a portfolio career. She is currently working for Business in the Community, seeking to improve economic and social outcomes for some of Britains “forgotten” towns. Her non-executive roles include vice chair of UCL, non-executive director of Crossrail and chair of Heathrow Southern Railway. Baroness Valentine previously ran London First for many years. She joined the organisation in 1997 as Managing Director, becoming Chief Executive in 2003. London First's mission is to make London the best place in the world in which to do business. Its members include leading retailers, investment banks and property companies. Baroness Valentine stood down from the organisation in 2016.Baroness Valentine is currently working in Blackpool on behalf of Business in the Community, bringing together businesses to tackle systemic issues in the community and create a positive and resilient community. Prior to London First, Baroness Valentine worked in corporate finance at Barings Bank, where she became the first female manager. In 1988, on secondment from Barings, she established and ran 'The Blackburn Partnership', a public-private partnership to regenerate Blackburn, Lancashire. In 1990 she joined The BOC Group to head the corporate finance and planning function, leaving in 1995 to establish the Central London Partnership. She was on the National Lottery Commission until September 2005 and was recommended by the House of Lords Appointments Commission to be created a life peer, taking the title Baroness Valentine, of Putney in the London Borough of Wandsworth on 10 October 2005. She was a member of the Board of Governors for The Peabody Trust, a London housing association, from 2012 to 2017. Baroness Valentine was educated at St Paul's Girls' School and St Hugh's College, Oxford, where she read Maths and Philosophy. She also has an Honorary Doctorate in Law from Roehampton University. She was a board member of the New West End Company and of inward investment agency Think London and was a Trustee of Teach First. She is married to venture capitalist and author Simon Acland, son of Sir Antony Acland, the former British Ambassador to Washington. They have two daughters, Eloise Acland and Isabel Acland.
