Vision: The Royal Mint has added three new business arms since Anne Jessopp became its chief executive
For centuries, coins were minted at the Tower of London, but around 60 years ago the Treasury-owned group moved its factory to Llantrisant in Wales, around 10 miles north of Cardiff. 'We did a lot of work thinking about the different options, and then moved from being an organisation where circulating coins was the biggest piece of our business to having six businesses now – with circulating currency our smallest driver of profits.'She has an economics degree, but she moved up through the ranks of companies that include Rolls-Royce, the RAC and The Royal Mint itself via the human resources department.
'I think the role of a chief executive is no longer that of an expert. What you need to have is a team of experts and you need to trust them. I look back and human resources feels like really great experience for being the chief executive.' When they were in the early stages of planning the shake-up, Jessopp says they sent one of their people off to do research and he returned with the idea of using ground-breaking technology developed by a Canadian company called Excir to extract precious metals at room temperature from electronic waste.
As well as recycling materials, the extension of Royal Mint's work also promises that some of its staff could be redeployed to different parts of the business.