Former UK Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt has been appointed chair of the board of a financial services group with operations in Jersey.

Dame Penny, who served as Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council from 2022 to 2024, has joined Opera Limited as the group enters the next phase of its expansion and integration programme, Project Overture. 

Opera operates across eight jurisdictions, including Jersey and Guernsey, and has a team of almost 600 people administering $73 billion in assets.

Its portfolio includes Accuro, HFL, Meritus and Oak, and the privately held group is backed by Pula, the family office of fintech entrepreneur Stephen Lansdown CBE, alongside other investors. 

As chair, Dame Penny will lead Opera’s board and oversee its governance and strategy, including scrutiny of the Group CEO and acting as an interface with shareholders.

She spent 14 years in the UK Parliament and held nine ministerial roles, including four Cabinet positions. Her previous posts included Defence Secretary, Paymaster General and International Development Secretary. 

Stephen Lansdown, Opera’s majority shareholder, said: “From the beginning, my ambition for Opera has been clear: to build a financial services group for the ambitions of the future. One that serves clients exceptionally well, invests in its people and, as it grows, raises the standard for the industry.

“We are here to build something genuinely better and compete at the highest level. Long-term ambition needs more than patient capital. It needs strong governance, clear accountability and a Board prepared to challenge the business.”

He added that he had seen Dame Penny’s work as chair of SubSea Craft “first-hand”, praising her “strategic judgement, international perspective and the confidence to ask difficult questions”. 

Dame Penny said: “What attracted me to Opera was a serious long-term ambition, backed by owners prepared to build with patience.

“Good governance gives that ambition discipline. It ensures difficult questions are asked early, decisions are tested and organisations remain accountable to the people they serve.

“I look forward to working with Kim and the Board to help turn Opera’s ambition into meaningful outcomes for clients, colleagues and shareholders.”