Gloucestershire's most successful start-up ever has a new ceo
A new chief executive officer to steer Gloucestershire's biggest business has been announced, bringing to an end a 30-year career of one of the architects of a firm whose turnover hit £17 billion.
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It was first reported back in May 2023 that FTSE-100 firm St James's Place had begun the search for a successor to its chief executive officer Andrew Croft, and now the firm has found one.
Croft is one of the early architects of the Cirencester-headquartered wealth manager, joining the business two years after it started in 1991 in offices in the fittingly named Dollar Street and serving as its chief financial officer between 2004 and 2017.
The Cotswold company, which today boasts thousands of financial advisors and manages an estimated £153 billion of client assets, used headhunting specialists Russell Reynold Associates to locate Croft's successor.
That person has now been revealed as Mark FitzPatrick, who has already joined the board of directors as chief executive officer designate with effect from 1 October 2023 and will assume the role of ceo on 1 December.
Paul Manduca, chair of St James’s Place, said: “On behalf of the board, I would like to thank Andrew for his unwavering commitment to St James’s Place over the last 30 years."
Croft said: “It has been a great privilege to work with everyone within our broad St James’s Place community, and I wish Mark and the business every success in the future.”
Prior to joining the Gloucestershire business, FitzPatrick was group chief executive officer of Prudential plc on an interim basis until 24 February 2023 and before that chief financial officer of the firm from 2017 to 2022, becoming chief operating officer in July 2019.
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