Stephen Clarke has been an Accent Group Non-Executive Director since 2001, when he was elected to the predecessor Board of B&N Group Ltd.

He is currently Deputy Chair of the Group's Audit and Corporate Governance Committee, and a member of the Strategic Growth Working Party. He is also a Director of Accent Yorkshire, Accent Partnerships, Accent Regeneration and Accent Property Solutions.

Born and brought up in Kent, he joined the Bank of England after graduating with a BSc(Econ) from the University of Hull. As a central bank official, he held Bank posts in London, in the Banking, Economic Intelligence, Financial Statistics, and International Divisions, before moving to Yorkshire, first as Leeds Branch Manager, and then as Deputy Agent of the regional Agency.

As well as reporting on economic trends to inform the Monetary Policy Committee, Agency work included facilitating initiatives related to business finance and innovation, and economic regeneration; Stephen led for the Bank in Yorkshire on this aspect and, amongst other past appointments, he was a member of the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Innovation Strategy Board (and chair of the RIS Financial Services Sector Board), chair of the South Yorkshire Investment Fund Partners' Group, a member of the Regional Chamber's Advanced Economy Commission, and a Steering Group member of the Leeds Financial Services Initiative. He was also a co-opted Council member of the Leeds, and the Hull & Humber, Chambers of Commerce.

On leaving the Bank of England, he joined the Accent Group Board, and was also recruited, on contract, by the Government Office for Yorkshire and Humber (GOYH), to manage a GOYH/Yorkshire Forward project and establish an Investment Fund, providing finance for small and medium sized businesses and social enterprises in the region's Objective 2 areas. Since completing that project, he has been an Adviser to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on Venture Capital and Loan Funds set up under Structural Funds Programmes in the English regions.