Verena Ross, executive director of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), talks to Alan Houmann, Citigroup’s EMEA head of government affairs, in an interview arranged by the CISI
Watch the full interview on CISI TVThe CISI’s European Regulation Forum invited Verena Ross to talk to Alan Houmann about her career and experience as a senior regulator, both in the UK and, now, at ESMA in Paris.
Verena talks to Alan about her background in UK regulation, starting her career at the Bank of England and going on to work for Sir Howard Davies, the then chairman and chief executive of the newly-formed Financial Services Authority (FSA) – one of the biggest public sector merges of all time.
Following her appointment as the FSA’s director of strategy and risk during the financial crisis, Verena was appointed executive director of ESMA in 2011. Verena and Alan discuss the birth of ESMA from the financial crisis as part of a new European system of financial supervision, with Verena elaborating on the challenges she faced in establishing ESMA, implementing the ensuing flood of new EU laws and developing supervisory convergence. She emphasises the importance of building the right culture into ESMA, focusing on professionalism, transparency, collaboration, accountability, co-operation and being European.
She concludes by talking about what she thinks Brexit means for ESMA, for its relationship with the FCA and for financial services.