Liliana Leah Archibald

Liliana Leah Archibald, née Kalmanowsky and later Barou, was born on 25 May 1928 in Marylebone, London. Her parents, Emanuel Eshuah Kalmanowsky and Sophie Gissen, were Russian Jewish immigrants. Her father was a civil engineer and company director who left the family shortly after her birth. Her mother later married Noah Barou, the head of London's Moscow Narodny Bank branch, after which Liliana adopted the surname Barou.

Archibald attended Kingsley Lodge School for Girls in Belsize Park from 1935 until her evacuation to Tintagel, Cornwall during World War II. She remained there until the end of the war. After completing her schooling in 1947, she pursued higher education at the University of Geneva, where she studied History, Literature, and Philosophy from 1947 to 1949. During this period, she also worked as a translator for the United Nations. She translated the fourth edition of Vasily Klyuchevsky's "History of Russia" and edited and translated its third volume.

In 1952, Archibald moved to New Zealand and became an economics lecturer at the University of Otago, also tutoring in Russian history. She translated and contributed to works on Russian history during her time there. In 1955, she returned to the United Kingdom and joined her stepfather's firm, Moscow Narodny Bank, as a specialist in credit insurance for banks. She later claimed that salaries in academia were insufficient to sustain her career ambitions.

In 1957, Archibald was appointed a director of Credit Consultants. She also joined Adam Brothers Contingency, a firm providing overseas clients with contingency insurance. She became a director of Adam Brothers Contingency in 1970. Following the 1968 Cromer Report, Lloyd's of London lifted restrictions on women brokers, leading to her application and accreditation as an insurance broker at Lloyd's on 1 January 1973. This made her the first female accredited insurance broker at Lloyd's.

In May 1973, Archibald was appointed chief of the Division for Credit Insurance and Export Credit of the European Commission's Directorate-General for External Relations. She worked to standardize export credit insurance systems among European Economic Community member states. In 1977, Lloyd's appointed her as its EEC adviser, a role in which she appeared on the BBC programme Question Time, advocating for British exports.

Archibald advanced to become Lloyd's international affairs adviser in 1981. She stepped down from her directorial role at Adam Brothers in 1985 to serve as chairperson from 1991 to 1992. Her service extended to several governmental bodies, including the British Export Finance Advisory Council, the Review of Banking Services Law Committee, and the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct. Between 1984 and 1985, she participated in a government inquiry into Sunday trading regulations, which recommended increasing trading hours. In 1989, she contributed to a review of banking law and practices, proposing 83 recommendations.

She was married from 1951 to 1965 to economist George Christopher Archibald; the marriage was childless. Archibald was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

Liliana Leah Archibald died on 1 June 2014 at the age of 86 due to a ruptured aortic aneurysm in Hampstead, London. Her obituary noted her love of high-speed Porsche automobiles, her distinctive black leather jacket, and cigarillos. She is recognized for having encouraged and influenced numerous women to pursue careers at Lloyd's of London.