The appointments will support the regulator's ongoing transformation
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has appointed Therese Chambers and Steve Smart as executive directors to co-lead its enforcement and market oversight.
Chambers brings many years of experience to the role, having worked at the FCA for over 20 years. She spent most of those years working in enforcement, including as director of retail and regulatory investigations. She is currently the director of consumer investments in the supervision, policy, and competition division.
Smart joins the FCA from the National Crime Agency, where he sits on the executive committee as director of intelligence, leading a division of over 2,000 people. He has also worked in the private sector where he led the development of an integrated intelligence and investigations department in a major banking group.
Chambers will take on her new role at the FCA on April 1, 2023, while Smart will join on June 21, 2023.
The appointments, the FCA said, would support its ongoing transformation to become a more assertive, more adaptive, and more innovative regulator. It added that Chambers and Smart brought a highly complementary skillset, with the former’s extensive regulatory, supervisory, and legal experience combined with the latter’s criminal enforcement, investigatory, intelligence and security experience.
The expansion of the enforcement and market oversight leadership team, following Mark Steward’s departure, also reflects the vital role that enforcement work plays in delivering the FCA’s three-year strategy and its commitments to reducing the growth in financial crime. It also ensures consumer outcomes meet the higher standards of the new Consumer Duty, stepping in where firms restrict competition, and much more.
“Enforcement is a key regulatory tool allowing us to hold firms and individuals to account for wrongdoing and helping to reduce and prevent serious harm to consumers and in markets,” said Nikhil Rathi, chief executive at the Financial Conduct Authority. “We are committed to acting faster and more effectively, putting the power of technology, data, and intelligence at the heart of our enforcement operations.
“Therese and Steve will be a powerful combination, bringing a complementary skillset, which will enable us to do just that. I thank Mark again for his remarkable seven years of service.”
Other role changes at the FCA
The regulator has also announced the creation of a single legal function, headed by current general counsel Stephen Braviner-Roman. This will bring together the general counsel division and the legal group, which currently sits within enforcement and market oversight, in a single unified legal division to ensure a joined up legal capability working across the organisation.
Sarah Pritchard will take over executive responsibility for the FCA’s international work once Steward leaves on April 13, in addition to her existing role as markets executive director in the supervision, policy and competition division.
The new appointments mean the FCA’s executive committee will have nine members, comprising five women and four men, including three from minority ethnic backgrounds.
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