The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has gone outside the organization for two major new hires, the regulator announced on Friday.
Mark Steward, the current head of enforcement at the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), will take over as the FCA’s new enforcement chief.
Barbara Frohn, an executive with Banco Santander SA, who is currently seconded to the Institute of International Finance (IIF), will become the FCA’s new director of risk and compliance oversight.
Steward and Frohn are expected to join the FCA after the summer.
“These are two vital roles within the U.K. regulatory system and it says a lot about the FCA that we have been able to attract such high-calibre candidates to fill [these positions],” says Martin Wheatley, CEO of the FCA.
“Mark and Barbara have built up excellent reputations for their work in financial services across the globe,” he adds, “and I am delighted they have chosen to bring their experience to the FCA.”
The appointments reflect the strategic reorganization that the FCA announced last year. Specifically, the regulator’s enforcement function is being merged with a new market oversight division.
The new risk and compliance oversight division is being created to drive the management of internal and external risk, and to create a direct link between the risk function and the CEO for the first time.
Before joining the SFC, Steward held several senior positions with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and was most recently deputy executive director, enforcement at the ASIC.
Frohn is a managing director public policy for Santander U.S., although she is currently working at the IIF, leading its work into the future of the regulatory capital framework and the benchmarking of internal risk models.
Prior to joining Santander, Frohn held several senior roles at ABN AMRO and she was official advisor to the European Parliament for four years.