FCA enforcement boss steps down
Mark Steward has announced he will be stepping down as the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) executive director of enforcement and market oversight after seven years with the regulator.
He will leave the FCA in spring 2023, with a global search for his successor to begin shortly.
Steward joined the FCA in 2015 from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, where he was executive director with responsibility for the enforcement division.
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Since then, he has led the delivery of some of the FCA’s most high-profile and precedent-setting enforcement cases, with many notable successes against major global financial institutions and individuals, the FCA said.
Steward also led the FCA’s listing authority and oversight of the UK’s publicly traded markets, a role in which he developed the regulator’s data-led approach to market oversight.
Additionally, he has been at the forefront of the FCA’s anti-scam marketing campaign, Scamsmart.
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“Mark has brought his formidable experience as a regulator and as a litigator to the FCA, delivering significant enforcement cases across a broad spectrum, as well as the FCA’s data-led approach to market oversight”, said FCA chief executive Nikhil Rathi.
“That enormous contribution is a result of Mark’s abiding belief in fairness, that markets must be clean if the economy is to thrive and in doing the right thing on behalf of consumers. He has shown that the FCA is willing to take on challenging cases, will use the full extent of our powers and will deliver results that have a real impact for the markets we oversee and for those who rely on them.”
Steward added that it had been “a privilege to serve the FCA throughout many challenges over the last seven years and, as I move on, to leave behind such a strong team for the future.”
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