Diane Banks
Founder & CEO, Northbank Talent Management
As Founder & CEO of Northbank Talent Management, Diane draws on 30 years’ experience of brokering IP rights deals (brand partnerships, film & TV, corporate, live, books) to devise and oversee the execution of content monetisation strategies for Northbank’s roster of creators, broadcasters, writers and speakers. She advises the investment community on the creator economy and is increasingly active in capital deployment in the space.
Diane has an interest in domestic policy, currently serving as a non-executive director of the leading Westminster think tank Bright Blue, and an interest in arts policy to which she brings a pro-market approach. She currently serves as a trustee of the Buxton International Festival and has previous trustee and development board experience across the arts.
Diane believes that work has the power to transform lives and is an ambassador for the ex-offender charity Tempus Novo, helping to increase the employment rate amongst former prisoners.
Why do you support the work of the Entrepreneurs Network?
Not only does The Entrepreneurs Network produce clear, cutting-edge research showing why policy makers should prioritise entrepreneurship, but it also brings entrepreneurs and policy makers together through a variety of events, facilitating ongoing dialogue. There is always a need to show why business is pivotal in effecting social and environmental change as well as forming the bedrock of a meritocracy, and The Entrepreneurs Network is key to this conversation.
What research should more people read?
Anything which is optimistic about change and looks for opportunity. Beyond The Entrepreneurs Network's own research on entrepreneurship, I would point to Bright Blue on pro-market environmental solutions; the Institute of Economic Affairs on the perils of regulation; and the Adam Smith Institute on how free markets can address world poverty.
Books-wise, Roger Bootle’s The AI Economy: Work, Wealth and Welfare in the Robot Age and Douglas McWilliams’s The Flat White Economy both show how technology and innovation are always forces for good. Entrepreneurs should read blogs about their industry, the business pages and in particular the FT's Companies page for their sector
Entrepreneurs should read blogs about their industry, the business pages and in particular the FT's Companies page for their sector … but most of all, they should stop reading, get out there and get on with it!
Why is the UK an attractive place to grow a business?
A unique combination of a couple of thousand years’ history of trading, English common law, regulation which favours innovation and a diverse and open society – with the opportunity to become even more so in the years to come.