Bank plans to hire operating officer in 2013
THE BANK of England will appoint a chief operating officer for the first time next year, it announced yesterday, in order to ease the strain on Sir Mervyn King’s successor as governor when the Bank assumes its broadened role in the financial sector.
The new executive will run the Bank on a day-to-day basis, the announcement said, giving the governor and deputy governors more time to focus on their “policy responsibilities”.
These duties are set to grow to include most financial regulation – if the government’s Financial Services Bill, currently being debated in parliament, is passed.
The new day-to-day boss will be appointed once chancellor George Osborne announces his pick for King’s replacement as governor, the Bank says. It added that the appointment would take place in “close consultation with the prospective governor”.
The announcement came in tandem with the news that Bank finance director Warwick Jones will stand down in June next year, in line with his “long-standing” intention to leave the Bank at the same time as governor Sir Mervyn King.
Jones said his time at the Bank was “fascinating and rewarding…if a little more exciting than I anticipated when I joined in 2006,” and governor King praised his “outstanding contribution to the Bank”.
The Bank said the new chief operating officer, once appointed, would in turn lead the search for Jones’s replacement as finance director, after recruiter Odgers Berndtson complete the first phase of the recruitment process.