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Steve Allen appointed HS2 chief financial officer

Steve Allen has been appointed as the new chief financial officer at HS2 Ltd.

Allen previously worked at Transport for London as managing director of finance, where he was responsible for business planning and financial control of £11bn of annual transport spending and £21bn of capital investment. He also led a cost-reduction programme, corporate finance activity and TfL’s information management strategy, as well as focuses on maximising revenues from commercial sources like property and advertising.

He had previous roles at the Department for Transport, Citigroup and Abbey National before joining TfL.

He said: “HS2 is an ambitious, innovative and challenging project that promises to transform the experience of rail travel for huge numbers of people across the UK and provide a major boost to economic growth.

“I am excited to be joining at such a critical time for the project.”

Simon Kirby, chief executive at HS2 Ltd, said he was “delighted to welcome Steve to the team”.

He added: “On a project as large and complex as HS2, rigorous financial control is essential. His experience of delivering multi-billion pound investment programmes will be invaluable as we move towards the start of construction in 2017.”