The Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment - the professional body for Certified Financial Planners and other finance professionals - has appointed Tracy Vegro, a director at the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority, as its new chief executive.

She will take up her new role at the 45,000 member body on 5 September and will replace Simon Culhane, who is standing down after 18 years as CISI CEO.

Mr Culhane will take on a roving international ambassador role for the CISI after stepping down from the CEO role.

The salary package for the new CEO has not yet been disclosed but according to the annual accounts for the year ending March 2021, Mr Culhane's package, including payment in lieu of pension, was £362,778. 

Ms Vegro is currently executive director, strategy and innovation at the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority (SRA).

At the SRA she leads delivery of the SRA’s corporate strategy and heads the innovation, regulatory and education policy and research & analysis teams. 

She is also the executive sponsor for mental health and wellbeing at the SRA. 

Before she joined the SRA she was an executive director at the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). She was the FRC’s diversity champion and led initiatives aimed at boosting diversity on FTSE boards. She was awarded an OBE in the 2020 New Year Honours list for services to business and diversity.

Earlier in her career she was a senior civil servant in Whitehall. She started as a new graduate and worked in several areas developing strategy and policy, delivering new legislation and major public policy campaigns in key economic sectors, such as competition policy, company law, financial services, energy and equalities legislation. 

While a civil servant she undertook several secondments in the private sector including to the Co-operative Group, working on the Co-operative Bank recapitalisation. Earlier spells out of Whitehall included time overseas in New York and Paris.

She is a member of the Cabinet Office’s Major Project Leadership Academy (MPLA) and an alumni member of the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy network, Oxford University Said Business School and City of London Corporation’s Leaders of Tomorrow alumni groups. 

The CISI chair Michael Cole-Fontayn said: “We are delighted to welcome Tracy as our new chief executive. Her skillset and experience working across both the corporate, regulatory and public sectors is exemplary. Her guidance and leadership are important now as we move the CISI to its next stage of development. We look forward to introducing Tracy to our members, firms, volunteers and all CISI stakeholders.”

Tracy Vegro OBE said: “I am excited by the challenge of contributing my ideas and energy to leading the CISI into its fourth decade and look forward to working with Michael, the Board and all the Institute’s staff, volunteers, and stakeholders."