The member of the House of Lords is also the founder and senior partner at specialist sell-side adviser Cavendish Corporate Finance LLP.

Lord Leigh has also held positions at Deloitte, the Department of Trade and Industry, served on the board at Bolton Building Society and was also chairman of the Faculty of Corporate Finance of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Vernon Hill, chairman and founder of Metro Bank, said he was looking forward to the challenge, debate and insight Lord Leigh would bring to the table.

 “Howard brings a wealth of experience to our advisory board, not only in finance, but politics, the charity sector and international trade.

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“He complements the existing membership extremely well and I know he’s going to prove to be invaluable to the executive team at Metro Bank.”

The challenger bank’s advisory board allows Metro’s executive team unprecedented access to individuals who have played a key role in disrupting the market and includes advisers to the government and major companies such as Apple.

Lord Leigh said he was delighted to be joining Metro’s advisory board.

“I have watched the bank’s tremendous growth and always admired its particular assistance to the UK SME business community.

“Accordingly, I hope to contribute to Metro’s continued success given my 30-year experience of working in this sector, mainly with entrepreneurs.”

Last month, Metro revealed it had reduced its underlying loss before tax to £11.7m as it targets a full year of profitability in 2017.