Region’s face of the Bank of England announces retirement

He has been acting as the conduit between the central bank and the region’s business community since 2006.

He will be replaced by Juliette Healey, a Bank of England staffer who will take over in January. In a letter to business contacts, Mr Fullerton said: “I will be 60 in January 2012 and have decided to take retirement.

“This was not an easy decision but the analogy I would use is when you are at a really enjoyable party you might leave at midnight with a great feeling. But sometimes if you wait till 2am you regret it. Hopefully, the former choice leaves me with enough energy for something else though I am not sure what.”

Ms Healey joined the Bank in 1986 and has worked in a variety of jobs. These include secondments to the Treasury, around the time when the UK joined the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1990, and the International Monetary Fund in the mid 1990s.

The 47-year-old is currently a senior manager in press and parliamentary affairs at the Bank.

She is looking forward to moving to York-shire, said Mr Fullerton. She joins in November and becomes agent in the new year. In the meantime, Ms Healey will spend time with some of the Bank’s other 12 agents before heading north.

Mr Fullerton became deputy agent in 2000 and was appointed agent in 2006.

He is a familiar face to many in the region’s business community and his presentations on economic matters have been well attended events, particularly during the financial crisis and as the subsequent chaotic global forces weighed down on the regional economy.

Mr Fullerton meets with around 700 companies a year to discuss business conditions and gather intelligence for the Monetary Policy Committee, which meets each month to set interest rates.

In his letter to contacts, he said: “Many thanks for your support to me and the Bank in what has been an almost unprecedented period of economic and financial history.

“It has been a privilege to act as a conduit to the Monetary Policy Committee feeding back business intelligence to help inform policy decisions.

“I am hoping by the turn of the year things will be a little less frantic for Juliette!”

Prior to his role at the Bank, Mr Fullerton spent 25 years at Yorkshire Bank and held senior positions as head of business banking and head of retail bank- ing.

He was raised in a coal-mining family in County Durham, but moved to Yorkshire at 18.