The head of Barclays’ business banking unit is being lined up to spearhead a government-backed taskforce on female entrepreneurship being revamped in the wake of Dame Alison Rose’s defenestration.

Sky News has learnt that Hannah Bernard, who took charge of Barclays’ business banking operation during the COVID crisis, and Debbie Wosskow, the founder of tech start-up Love Home Swap, have been recommended by officials to take over as co-chairs of what was known as the Rose Review.

The dual appointment, which has yet to be approved by Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, is expected to be announced by the end of the month.

Sources said on Thursday that the group was expected to be renamed Investing in Women, severing any links to Dame Alison, the former NatWest Group chief executive.

The new co-chairs are said to have been promised “a blank sheet of paper” that would not oblige them to follow Dame Alison’s previous recommendations.

Dame Alison was forced to step down last summer when it emerged that she had briefed a BBC journalist with erroneous information about the financial arrangements of Nigel Farage, sparking a political firestorm which engulfed state-backed NatWest for months.

She ultimately forfeited millions of pounds when the NatWest remuneration committee decided on her seven-figure payoff.

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The Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship was commissioned in 2019 to illuminate the barriers to women founding and building successful businesses.

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Under Dame Alison, it made a string of recommendations, including the establishment of an Investing in Women Code, which by this time last year had amassed 190 signatories representing more than £1trn in assets under management.

The Department for Business and Trade declined to comment.

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