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.

Elizabeth Barrett

Executive Counsel and Executive Director, 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.

Mark Babington

Executive Director, Regulatory Standards

Mark Babington is the 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.

Sarah Rapson

Executive Director, Supervision

Sarah Rapson joined the FRC as Executive Director Supervision in September 2021. She is responsible for leading the FRC’s Supervision Division and its work to enhance audit quality both through standard setting and audit monitoring of firms; supervisory oversight of the Recognised Professional Bodies; and to promote improvement in corporate reporting though detailed technical reviews of companies’ annual report and accounts.

From 2016-21, Sarah was the Director of Authorisations at the Financial Conduct Authority. From 2013-16, Sarah was a member of the Home Office Board, as the first Director General of UK Visas and Immigration – responsible for overseas visas, in-country immigration, and asylum. Sarah was Chief Executive of the Identity and Passport Service (now HM Passport Office) from 2010-13 and in 2010 was also appointed by Her Majesty the Queen as the 20^th Registrar General for England and Wales, responsible for Civil Registration, a post she held until 2014.

Before joining the Civil Service in 2005, Sarah’s career had been in retail financial services. She graduated in Mathematics and holds an MBA from London Business School. She is currently the Senior Independent Director of North Middlesex University Hospital Trust and, from December 2021, also a Non-Executive Director of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. In 2016, Sarah was named as one of Cranfield University’s 100 Women to Watch.

Alex Kuczynski

Executive Director of Corporate Services and General Counsel

Alex Kuczynski is the Executive Director of Corporate Services and General Counsel. The division comprises the General Counsel’s Team, Finance (including risk, procurement, and facilities), Human Resources, Information Technology, and Economics, Strategy & Analytics.

Alex joined FRC in September 2020, prior to which he was the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, and an executive board director, at the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. As a lawyer, Alex was firstly head of legal at FSCS, but in various roles over 20 years worked on a wide range of financial services issues, particularly those with actual or potential consumer detriment, across investment business, insurance and banking, and often collaborating closing with government, regulators and industry stakeholders.

Miranda Craig

Director of Strategy & Change

Miranda is a Fellow of the Chartered Governance Institute with 17 years’ experience across professional services, large private and listed companies, having qualified whilst at Ernst & Young. She has also held senior secretariat roles at Sage Group plc, ARM, R&Q and EDF Energy. Miranda spent 2019 seconded to BEIS leading on the Independent Review into the Quality and Effectiveness of Audit, supporting Sir Donald Brydon’s comprehensive review of audit; its purpose, user needs and future direction. She joined the FRC in March 2020 as Director of Strategy & Change with responsibility for delivering the transformation programme.

Kate O'Neill

Director of Stakeholder Engagement & Corporate Affairs

Kate joined the FRC as the Director of Stakeholder Engagement and Corporate Affairs in May 2020.

Previously she was the Head of Corporate Development at Jupiter Asset Management where she was responsible for corporate strategy, investor relations and communications. Kate was the Managing Director of Investor Relations at Lloyds Banking Group during the financial crisis before becoming a Partner at Brunswick and then at Maitland advising global clients on capital markets and communications issues.

After qualifying as a lawyer, Kate spent most of her career in the financial services sector in the UK, Europe and Australasia in senior leadership roles in distribution and alternative assets at AMP Asset Management, Henderson Global Investors and RBS Asset Management.