He joins the board along with design guru Vittorio Radice, who is executive director of Marks & Spencers' Home Division and was previously chief executive of Selfridges and managing director of Habitat UK.
Lord Alli and Radice will advise on how to design and deliver better services to the bank's customers. The board, which is separate to Abbey National's PLC board, will be chaired by customer productions director Angus Porter, who joins from BT at the beginning of next month.
Lord Alli made his fortune by co-founding Planet 24 with his business partner Charlie Parsons and Live Aid and Band Aid organiser Bob Geldof. The company produced Channel 4's seminal morning show, 'The Big Breakfast', which helped build the careers of presenters Chris Evans, Paula Yates, Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen.
The trio sold Planet 24 to Carlton in 1999, and Lord Alli was briefly managing director of Carlton Productions, resurrecting the daytime soap 'Crossroads', which has since been axed.
A second-generation Guyanese and New Labour fixer, Lord Alli was made a peer in 1998 and is an active member on the Labour benches in the Lords, where he focuses on equality, poverty and education.
He is currently executive director of Shine Entertainment, the television production company founded by Elizabeth Murdoch, daughter of media mogul Rupert. In April 2003, he was made chair of entertainment brands business Chorion, which owns the rights to Noddy, Poirot and Miss Marple.
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .
.jpg)
.jpg)