London & Partners’ Janet Coyle awarded CBE, for services to the Economy in Queen's Platinum Jubilee Honours

Janet Coyle, Managing Director Business for London & Partners, has been awarded a CBE, the highest ranking Order of the British Empire award, for services to the Economy in the prestigious Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Honours list.

Janet has been at London & Partners, the business growth and destination agency for London, since 2015. She leads the business teams in London and internationally to generate economic growth and jobs for Londoners by promoting the UK capital as the best city in the world to innovate, invest and grow businesses.

Janet’s role involves overseeing London & Partners activity in attracting international companies to expand into London and developing trade and growth initiatives including the Mayor’s International Business Programme, which helps high growth businesses in London to trade internationally.

Since its inception, the Mayor’s International Business Programme has been awarded ‘Best Export Programme’ by the Scale Up Institute and supported over 1200 high growth companies to grow, including now household names such as Monzo, Revolut, Bloom and Wild and Olio.  

Since 2016, London & Partners promotion of London as a business destination has helped create almost 23,000 jobs and generated £742 million of economic value for London.  Janet has played a critical role in leading the teams to generate such significant outputs for the city.

Janet Coyle said: “I am humbled to be recognised in Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee Birthday Honours for services to the economy.  I feel privileged to be able to work with so many inspirational entrepreneurs, many of whom are building purpose-driven businesses, enabling positive change and building a better world. I am proud to support their growth. Thank you to the teams at London & Partners and friends across our ecosystem for your collaboration – we are on this journey together.”

Laura Citron, CEO of London & Partners said: “Janet is often described as a ‘fairy godmother’ to tech entrepreneurs in London, and particularly women founders. She sprinkles the magic of her encouragement, generous introductions and sense of community everywhere she goes. Janet’s tireless work over many years has created thousands of jobs for Londoners. I am so proud of Janet and delighted with this recognition for her exceptional achievements for businesses in our city.”

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “Janet has made an incredible contribution to London, as one of our city’s most passionate and hardworking champions for entrepreneurship. Her work has helped create many thousands of jobs in our city, with a huge impact for women and BAME-led businesses in particular.  I am delighted Her Majesty the Queen has recognised Janet for her hard work and dedication.”

In her role at London & Partners, Janet has also spearheaded programmes like SVC2UK (Silicon Valley Comes to the UK), founded by Reid Hoffman, Sherry Coutu and Ellen Levy, and grown the programme out of London & Partners to support over 800 scale up companies.  This included initiatives to support female founders, leading several trade missions to Silicon Valley connecting the female founders to new networks and opportunities.

Sherry Coutu CBE, Founder and Chair Founders4Schools and Worfinder, said “I am so delighted that Janet is receiving this honour which recognises the incredible impact of her decades of volunteering. It has been my great privilege to work with her at SVC2UK watching her accelerate the capabilities of business leaders whilst developing a global peer network to achieve growth. She has not just shared her inspiration with businesses and peers but has also been a foundational Trustee at Founders4schools which during her tenure has inspired 500,000 students’ entrepreneurial ambitions. Janet’s passion, energy and leadership are an inspiration to a multitude of us and has global impact. Bravo! “

Janet’s commitment to supporting entrepreneurship has also been recognised by the tech industry. She was featured in the Computer Weekly Top 20 list of most influential women in tech for the past three years and in 2019 she was recognised in the Financial Times 50 leading lights with a “Kindness in Leadership” award.

Prior to her work at London & Partners, Janet spent over 20 years in the Diplomatic Service working in several international cities including Washington DC, Mumbai, Jakarta, Cape town and San Francisco. She also ran the Business Hosting programme for London during the Olympic and Paralympic games in 2012 ensuring London benefited economically from the Games and generated jobs for Londoners by attracting foreign direct investment projects into London.