Business Management Support for the Green Finance Institute
From launch event to scaling up
Virtually Priceless has supported the Green Finance Institute since its inception, providing business management and virtual assistance support while the company has rapidly scaled up. The Green Finance Institute was originally established in response to a policy recommendation made by the Green Finance Taskforce to the government. Bridging the gap between industry and the public sector, the Green Finance Institute convenes and leads coalitions of experts to design and develop sector-specific financial solutions to move towards a greener, low-carbon future. Working as a not-for-profit, their role is to foster cross-sector collaboration, channel capital towards greener outcomes and accelerate the transition to a resilient and environmentally sustainable economy.
When Rhian-Mari Thomas OBE was brought in to lead the Green Finance Institute, she had to move quickly to set up the organisation. With the high-profile launch event just a few weeks away, Rhian-Mari recruited Holly Copsey from Virtually Priceless to support her in the role. Rhian-Mari explains: “We were a startup, working with a tight budget and very much in the public eye. I needed a personal assistant who I could trust at an executive level, working with very senior stakeholders across politics, academia, and industry. Having worked with Holly before in the City, I knew she was a very experienced senior executive assistant. And her rates were flexible and competitive, which suited where we were as an organisation.”
In the years since, the organisation has grown rapidly with a small core team and a number of consultants to support the team. To remain agile, the leadership team relies on dedicated business support from Virtually Priceless.
“Holly has continued to be a dedicated executive assistant for me. However, as we have grown, she and her team have stepped in to operate across key business management functions, including aspects of our communications, HR and onboarding, our invoicing and accounts, and the day-to-day relationship with our IT providers, providing vital functions within the business.”
Dr Rhian-Mari Thomas OBE
Chief Executive
Maintaining a strong positive culture
Organisational culture is a significant factor at the Green Finance Institute because they have a strong, positive focus on people’s wellbeing. Rhian-Mari explains: “From the start, there were high expectations of us; we needed to attract and recruit top talent. Often Holly and her team are the first point of contact with our company, so it’s important that they are experienced in handling all types of stakeholders. Holly is incredibly professional and the people she hires meet her high standards. And it’s important to me that we maintain a positive environment that is supportive and kind, which Virtually Priceless absolutely does.”
That links directly with the Green Finance Institute’s values of maintaining excellence and being innovative yet very practical. As Chief Operating Officer, Dan Godsall says: “One of our key challenges in moving from start-up to scale-up has been how to grow the business while maintaining the positive culture and the level of quality in our outputs. We’re a small team, none of our roles are narrowly defined at this stage in our growth, we all wear many hats. So Holly played a huge role in setting up our recruitment and onboarding processes, defining how we manage information and data, plus implementing our policies and controls. She has instigated many of our systems and processes to support our people.”
Proactive problem-solving
The leadership of the Green Finance Institute sees Holly as a valuable and integral member of their team. Rhian-Mari recalls: “At the start, it was a process of iterative, continuous discussion to establish how Virtually Priceless could support us. Holly would spot challenges or blockers that were affecting our time and propose changes. It became more of a steady state in year two, as we built the team of programme directors, making sure everyone was using their time efficiently and leveraging the skills we have by delegating effectively. She joins our team meeting every week and is a valued member of the team.” Dan confirms: “Holly is an integral part of the leadership team. She’s completely trustworthy and any challenge we give her, she will find a solution.”
Seamless one-to-one support
As the CEO, Rhian-Mari relies on Holly to manage her speaking engagements, a busy diary and inbox. Holly also acts as an entrepreneurial sounding board because of her experience in running a business. Rhian-Mari says: “Holly shows a lot of initiative and helps keep the show on the road. She’s straight-talking and a breath of fresh air to work with. I trust Holly implicitly and have every reason to trust in the business management competencies her team brings. She’s also an entrepreneur and she understands the challenges of being a startup because she’s grown her business at the same time we’ve been growing ours. The real result that Holly has delivered is that she’s enabled our team to grow. She also holds me to account and the feedback from our stakeholders is very good.”
Holly and her team contribute to every part of the business performance. Rhian-Mari says: “The relationship works seamlessly. We’ve all got used to working remotely and the business management function is one that works well as a virtual relationship. Of the things we’ve delegated to Holly and her team, all of those tasks have stayed with her. She makes sure the management team is using their time efficiently and delegating tasks to their assistants, so that we can leverage the skills across the team. As our business gets more complex, we may need more rigorous processes and I’d have every confidence that Virtually Priceless can support us with that.”
From his perspective as COO, Dan sums up the positive impact of Virtually Priceless on the business:
“In a relatively short time, we’ve developed a phenomenal reputation for the quality of the work we do. And it’s often down to Holly and her team as to how quickly and how well we respond. They manage all our enquiries and are the backbone of the business. We simply couldn’t run without them.”
Dan Godsell
Chief Operating Officer
Take a look at our Behind Every Successful Leader video interview with Andy Jackson Managing Director of Operations at the Green Finance Institute, where Holly and Andy discuss how GFI scaled from a 4 person start up to 90-strong international team (as of April 2025), with the help of an elite team of Virtually Priceless VAs.