She is currently the Financial Reporting Council's executive director of supervision
Sarah Rapson, the UK Financial Reporting Council's executive director of supervision, has been announced as the incoming chief executive of the UK Solicitors Regulation Authority, reported the Law Society Gazette.
Rapson will take on her new position near the end of the year. She succeeds Paul Philip, who retires after leading the organization for over 11 years.
Rapson will be tasked with guiding the SRA through the last year of its existing corporate strategy. She will also help address the fallout from the Axiom Ince report released by the Legal Services Board last year.
"I’m honoured to be asked to lead the SRA at such a pivotal moment for the legal sector. As we enter a new chapter, we’ll continue to navigate the opportunities and challenges brought by emerging technologies and evolving ways of working. The public rightly expects legal professionals to uphold the highest standards of integrity and competence. I look forward to working closely with the profession, colleagues across the SRA, and with other regulators to ensure those standards are met – and to intervene appropriately where they are not," she said in a statement published by the Gazette.
Rapson was the inaugural director-general of UK Visas and Immigration and chief executive of HM Passport Service. She has sat on the UK Home Office board and once worked in retail financial services at American Express, Barclays and Woolwich.
SRA board chair Anna Bradley highlighted Rapson's "broad and deep regulatory, policy and management experience," which Bradley said in a statement published by the Gazette would enable Rapson to lead the organizations through a challenging environment.
Ian Jeffery, chief executive of the Law Society of England and Wales, congratulated Rapson on the appointment, saying in a statement published by the Gazette that she was joining the SRA "at a critical time in its history."
"Restoring consumer and solicitors’ trust and confidence in the regulator following a challenging period, which has seen the collapse of Axiom Ince and SSB Law, will be vital," Jeffery said.
An LSB report on how the SSB Law collapse was handled may be published before Rapson commences as SRA chief executive.
