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WH Ireland Group Plc

("WH Ireland" or the "Company")

Appointment of Head of Private Growth Capital

WH Ireland (AIM: WHI) is pleased to announce the appointment of Lisa Fox, as Head of Private Growth Capital. Lisa will join the Company with effect from 4 January 2022.

Lisa joins WH Ireland from Dabbl Global, the fintech app for retail investors, where she was Global Head of Sales; this followed over 25 years of investment banking and securities experience in London, Hong Kong and Tokyo, building client franchises and developing network and brand partnerships.

Between 2015-21 she worked for Haitong International, the investment bank and one of China's largest brokers, in both Hong Kong and London, latterly as the London office Chief Executive Officer.  Lisa started her career at JP Morgan Securities in 1996, joining Japaninvest (Ji) in 2004; having IPOed in 2006, Ji was acquired in 2015 by Haitong. During this time she held senior sales and managerial roles in both London and Hong Kong, significantly building the client bases and franchises of the respective firms.

Lisa is also the co-founder of Hakuba Advisory, an accelerator in build/exit strategies for female founders, and a Governor of Emanuel School; she graduated from the University of Exeter.

Lisa will lead WH Ireland's existing private growth capital team, which has recently completed a number of transactions, and operates in a wide variety of sectors. The team's distribution has been reinforced by the relaunch of the WH Ireland Investor Forum in September 2021, a platform which enables our high net worth clients to participate in both our private (and public) offerings.

Commenting on today's announcement, Phillip Wale, CEO of WH Ireland, said:

"I am delighted to welcome Lisa to the team. She brings with her a wealth of experience and expertise building businesses, which will prove invaluable as we grow our private funding business from its promising start and execute our significant private deal pipeline. Her skills of developing distribution networks, and her entrepreneurial flair and determination, will play a key role in delivering our aspirations in this exciting market."

Lisa Fox said:

"I am delighted and excited to be joining WH Ireland to lead its charge in the rapidly evolving private funding markets. In the third quarter alone, UK companies raised over £6.5bn in over 500 different transactions, and WH Ireland has a strong private capital institutional distribution capability alongside broad and increasing high net worth distribution to take advantage of this activity. This combination of market dynamics and capability give us the opportunity to build a leading private funding business."

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