The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has announced two new appointments to its executive leadership team.
Alan Evans joins the regulator as its new executive director, general counsel, risk and compliance and will take up his post in October. Kate O’Neill joined as executive director, communications and external affairs in May.
The SRA announced changes to its executive leadership team in April, in a bid to “create greater capacity, renewed focus and more clarity at senior levels”. The new roles will enable the regulator to remove a level of senior management, it said, and will “drive the transformation” it needs.
Recruitment for two final new roles – executive director of supervision and executive director of market risk, data and insight – started on 20 July.
Evans joins the SRA from HMRC, where he is general counsel and director general of the legal group and leads a large multidisciplinary team delivering legal services to HMRC and Treasury ministers.
He also advised HMRC on corporate governance, legal compliance and risk, professional standards and ethics. He is a member of the HMRC Executive Committee and the Government Legal Profession Senior Leadership Team.
He has held senior legal leadership positions across government, including as legal director at the Environment and Business departments. His earlier government career included roles advising on the design, implementation and oversight of company, competition, consumer and other regulatory frameworks.
Prior to working in government, Evans practiced commercial litigation in the City of London, primarily advising financial institutions. He was previously a member of the Law Society’s European Committee.
Until recently, O’Neill was director of stakeholder engagement and corporate affairs at the Financial Reporting Council. She established the team in early 2020 to deliver an integrated strategic stakeholder engagement function and led a corporate affairs programme across internal and external communications, public affairs, brand and marketing.
She was previously the head of corporate development at Jupiter Asset Management, responsible for corporate strategy, investor relations and communications. During the financial crisis, O’Neill was the managing director of investor relations at Lloyds Banking Group, before becoming a partner at Brunswick and then Maitland communications agencies, where she advised global clients on capital markets and communications issues.
A qualified lawyer, O’Neill has spent most of her career in the financial services sector in the UK, Europe and Australasia.
SRA chief executive Sarah Rapson said: “I am delighted to welcome Kate and Alan to the SRA and am so pleased that we continue to attract such high calibre people to the SRA.
“Establishing a stronger leadership team and simplified leadership structure is crucial to achieving the scale of change needed at the SRA. That said, there is still a lot of work ahead of us to become a modern, proportionate regulator that is both trusted and effective.”
