Executive Committee Members

Biographies of members of the Executive Committee.

Sir Jon Thompson

Chief Executive Officer

Prior to joining the FRC Jon was the CEO of HMRC, the UK Tax Authority, collecting more than £625billion, employing more than 65,000 people and driving reform of the UK tax system.

Before HMRC, Jon was Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, jointly leading the £36bn organisation with the Chief of the Defence Staff. Jon has had a lengthy finance career including as Director General, Finance at the MoD, Director General, Corporate Services at the Department for Education and Finance Director of Ofsted. Before joining the Civil Service in 2004 Jon held a number of corporate services and finance roles in the public and corporate sectors.

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David Rule

Director Of Supervision

David Rule is currently Executive Director, Insurance Supervision at the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority.

Previously he was Executive Director Prudential Policy and Director, International UK Banks Supervision. He worked for the FSA as Head of the Macro Prudential Department and was Chief Executive of the International Securities Lending Association. He has a degree in Modern History and further degrees in Political Science and Economics.

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Elizabeth Barrett

Executive Counsel and Director of Enforcement

Elizabeth Barrett became FRC Executive Counsel and Director of Enforcement on 1 August 2018. Mrs Barrett is responsible for leading the FRC’s Enforcement Division and for decisions in relation to disciplinary proceedings involving auditors, accountants and actuaries.

Elizabeth Barrett spent 30 years at Slaughter and May, including 27 years as a partner and was the firm’s Head of its Dispute Resolution Group between 2004 and 2008. Mrs Barrett advised HM Treasury on a number of high-profile proceedings throughout the financial crisis and after, including the interventions in Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley, as well as the administration of the Icelandic banks.

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Mark Babington

Acting Executive Director, Regulatory Standards

Mark Babington is the Acting Executive Director of Regulatory Standards at the Financial Reporting Council. He leads the division responsible for the FRC technical and public policy work covering audit, corporate reporting, corporate governance and stewardship, actuarial and the FRC Lab. The division also includes the all FRC’s Investor and Stakeholder Engagement work. Prior to joining ExCo, Mark led the FRC’s UK Audit Policy programme, measures to support greater competition in the UK audit market and work to support the reform of international standard setting for auditors, by global regulatory authorities.

Prior to joining the FRC, Mark had a twenty-year career in audit and was a Director at the UK National Audit Office. Prior to that he was a technical advisor to a number of EU capacity-building programmes. He was also involved in the audit of the United Nations.

For five years, Mark was a member of the UK government’s counter-fraud taskforce. He is a former Chairman of the International Colleges of Auditors of a number of European defence-related organisations. Mark is an Independent Governor, Board Member and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, which is the UK public body dedicated to supporting democracy around the world.

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