Elect James Sherwin-Smith to represent Nationwide building society members
I gave the following speech to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Investment Fraud & Fairer Financial Services at the Palace of Westminster on Monday 15th June 2026. A sample of the slides used in a presentation to the Transparency Task Force on Tuesday 9th June 2026 also accompanied my speech – see TTF event […]
12 ways Nationwide Building Society has biased the 2026 election with an electorate of 9.3 million people against me – and some notable 🥇Firsts along the way. 1. Using the #QuickVote when there is a Member Nominated Candidate on the Ballot. A🥇First for Nationwide, maybe for all Building Societies? There hasn’t been a Member Nominated […]
Bigger image size: 2026 Nationwide AGM James Sherwin-Smith Paper Voting Form instructions A few weeks ago I wrote an article asking: Will ballot design matter in Nationwide’s 2026 Board Election? At the time, I did not know how the voting form would look. Now I do. Members began receiving their voting packs this week and […]
I recently presented to the Transparency Task Force on the theme of member democracy in building societies. The full video is here The presentation explored why mutual organisations matter, why active member participation is essential to good governance, and how my campaign to become the first Member Nominated Candidate on Nationwide’s board ballot in over […]
This sum comprised a fixed salary of £1.2 million and bonuses amounting to £3.2 million, supplemented by a pension allowance and other benefits. The company’s pay committee said it was “comfortable that remuneration outcomes reflect the society’s excellent performance”. Nationwide made a pre-tax profit of £1.49 billion for the year to the end of March, which was down from the £2.3 billion reported the previous year.
In the latest TV ad from Nationwide poking fun at its shareholder-owned rivals, the self-important bank boss played by Dominic West grumbles “I deserve a bonus” when he’s told the building society is doling out £100 payments to millions of members. Just wait until he hears about the awards the mutual has handed to its chief executive.
Nationwide building society has nearly doubled the pay packet of its chief executive, Debbie Crosbie, a year after the board pushed through a controversial bonus scheme for its top boss. The mutual, which is owned by its members, released its annual report on Monday, showing Crosbie was handed £3.2m in bonuses – a combination of payouts for annual and longer-term performance – up from £1.1m a year earlier. It pushed her overall pay packet to […]
The boss of Nationwide has seen her pay almost double since the building society’s blockbuster takeover of Virgin Money. Debbie Crosbie, who has steered the mutual since 2022, bagged a £4.7m pay packet in the last financial year, up from £2.5m the year prior. Nationwide has found itself in a new controversy of the last few months after being accused of picking an “unfair fight” with one of its members who has sought to clinch a seat on the building society’s board. […]
The boss of Nationwide has seen her pay packet nearly double as she cashed in on bonus awards after steering the building society’s multi-billion pound acquisition of Virgin Money.
But the building society is facing criticism over its handling of the first member-nominated candidate to stand for election to sit on its board. […]
The boss of Nationwide saw her pay nearly double last year despite concerns about banker-style bonuses at the mutual. Dame Debbie Crosbie, who steered Nationwide’s takeover of Virgin Money, saw her pay increase from £2.49m to £4.70m for the year ending March 2026 after her bonuses tripled. According to the latest accounts for the building society, it makes Dame Debbie the […]
The boss of Nationwide’s pay package has nearly doubled over the past year after Britain’s biggest building society almost tripled her maximum bonus entitlement to more than £3 million. Dame Debbie Crosbie received total remuneration of nearly £4.7 million in the year to March 31, up from £2.49 million over the previous 12 months, Nationwide announced in its annual report on Monday. She is also in line for […]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
8TH JUNE 2026, LONDON — James Sherwin-Smith is the first Member-nominated candidate to stand for election to Nationwide’s Board in more than twenty years and the only candidate standing who has not been selected by the Board.
Dame Debbie Crosbie’s remuneration jumps from £2.49m to £4.67m – and for brokers, the more pressing question is what today’s results say about the lender that now holds one in six UK mortgages.
[↩️ Mobile users may want to rotate to landscape viewing, or click images to see full size: Society redactions, my alternative and my original Election Address.] As voting papers begin arriving with Nationwide Members, I believe it is important to explain a dispute that has arisen between myself and Nationwide regarding my Election Address and […]
On Tuesday 9th June at 18:00, James will be joining Andy Agathangelou, founder of the Transparency Task Force, for a deep-dive discussion into governance, democracy and accountability inside the UK mutual sector.
Last month, Navendu Mishra MP (Labour & Co-operative, Stockport) submitted three important written Parliamentary Questions to HM Treasury about the future governance of Building Societies.
Yesterday, all three received exactly the same response from the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Rachel Blake MP…
Public Statement – Saturday 30th May 2026 I’m grateful to Jasper Jolly for the article published this past Friday surrounding this year’s Board election process: Nationwide customer seeking election to board hits out at lender for ‘unfair’ treatment (The Guardian). One issue raised in the article is particularly important. Nationwide has refused requests to amend […]
Dear Supporter, I wanted to update you on a major development in the campaign for greater accountability and member representation at Nationwide. Yesterday, after a piece published in The Times regarding the extended delay, Nationwide formally confirmed that the Board will NOT be recommending my candidacy for election to the Board at this year’s AGM. […]
[UPDATE 28th May, 19:36 I have now obtained a copy of Nationwide’s “reactive media statement” briefing against my candidacy. I urge supporters to review my below responses and — with regards to Note 4 in Nationwide’s statement — to consider my response on the quick vote here: Fact checking Nationwide’s statement re ’emerging governance issues’.] […]
The rebel Nationwide customer campaigning to join the building society’s board has accused it of orchestrating an “unfair fight” after the mutual urged its members to oppose him.
Britain’s biggest building society said on Thursday it was recommending that its members vote against James Sherwin-Smith’s election as a director at its annual meeting in mid-July because its board had concluded […]
Nationwide has been accused of picking an “unfair fight” with one of its members who has sought to clinch a seat on the building society’s board. The mutual has opted […]
There are 16.4 million Members of Nationwide, and of those, 9.1 million eligible Members can vote in the run up to the virtual-only AGM on 15th July 2026. Voting opens when voting forms are distributed, which is expected in early/mid June. Last year, 670,000 Members voted. I’m hoping that this year, with a choice available […]
A spokesperson for Nationwide made a series of statements in today’s article in The Guardian reporting of Nav Mishra MP’s letter sent to the Nationwide chairman, Kevin Parry. I think these statements are worth placing in context – both in terms of the timeline of the pertinent events, and the corresponding data. I will leave […]
Great news for a subset of Members — but million still miss out on their share of the mutual’s profits As I expected, Nationwide has today announced a fourth consecutive Fairer Share payment, with around 4.4 million members expected to receive £100 in June, alongside a new 5% Member Exclusive Bond and a £175 current […]
21 May 2026, London — Following publication of Nationwide’s 2026 Preliminary Results (LSE Regulatory News Service), James Sherwin-Smith, a Member Nominated Candidate for election to Nationwide’s Board of Directors in 2026, commented: Nationwide’s latest preliminary results confirm that the Society remains financially strong and continues to gain in scale following the Virgin Money acquisition, alongside […]
A number of “one member, one vote” organisations in the UK have adopted the use of the ‘Quick vote’ (QV) mechanism – see Restore Trust’s 2023 report (The effect of the Quick Vote on democracy at the National Trust). In most cases this has not been specifically agreed by the membership, but instead co-opted by […]
I am grateful to Mr Navendu (Nav) Mishra MP for writing to both the Rt Hon Rachel Reeves (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Kevin Parry OBE (the Nationwide Building Society chairman), regarding emerging “governance issues within the building society sector”, with Gareth Thomas MP copied, as chair of the APPG for mutuals. These are […]
Update 21 May 2026 – the Fairer Share payment for 2026 has been announced – see this article! If Nationwide can again afford to make Fairer Share payments, this will be rightly celebrated by the recipients. However the majority of members that don’t receive these may be left questioning fairness: why do only a minority […]
Updated 8th June 2026 Now that I have been successfully nominated for election to the Nationwide Board, one thing is certain: my name will appear on the 2026 ballot paper. What remains uncertain is how, and where, my name will appear, and what impact that will have on my election chances, and the precedent it […]
LONDON, 27 APRIL 2026 07:00 – Nationwide Building Society has confirmed that I have receivedthe required valid nominations and will appear on the ballot for election to the Board at the2026 AGM. This creates the opportunity for Nationwide Members to elect a Member Nominated Directorfor the first time in over 20 years, at an important […]