Samantha Barrass, new chief executive of the Financial Markets Authority. Photo / Dean Purcell.
Samantha Barrass hasn't lived in New Zealand for 30 years, but says two things pulled her back to the country she called home for most of her childhood and young adult life.
"One was the personal. I really wanted to reconnect with New Zealand and as time was going on, I felt more sad about that. It was becoming increasingly important to me that I had a firm reconnection back with New Zealand and so the job gave me that opportunity."
The other attraction is the job she has taken on as chief executive of New Zealand's investment and markets regulator, the Financial Markets Authority.
Barrass' appointment comes at a pivotal time for the FMA, as it prepares to take on regulating the conduct of banks and insurers, filling a gap in the protection of consumers.
While the Reserve Bank ensures New Zealand's financial firms are financially stable and meet conditions such as having enough capital to operate, what has been lacking in New Zealand is oversight of how those firms treat their customers.
Australia's Royal Commission into misconduct in the financial services sector showed widespread issues. A joint investigation by regulators here didn't raise any systemic concerns but found plenty of room for improvement.
By the end of the year, legislation called the Conduct of Financial Institutions Bill is expected to be passed, setting up the FMA to license, monitor and then correct any shortcomings in the conduct of those institutions.
Barrass has seen it all when it comes to regulation, spending nearly 10 years at the Financial Services Authority in the United Kingdom, five years as chief executive of the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission and more recently heading the Business Banking Resolution Service in the UK.
"I've been involved in regulating everything that comes under the FMA's remit in one shape or another.
"I bring that experience and I've done it in an international context and have done it as regulatory regimes have changed as well."
The other key thing Barrass brings to the role is what she calls the importance of empathy.
"When banks and insurers and other financial services companies are putting together products ... it's that they are looking at it from the perception of the customer. That they are looking at 'how would I feel if my mum was in receipt of this service?'
"If it is insurance, what's my experience of the claims management process? I need to claim on my contents insurance, do I find out as I am going through that process that I should have read page 55 of the disclosures and it means I can't get fully paid out in the way that I expected?"
But her career has not been without controversy.
According to Gibraltar media, she left the regulator nearly a year before her contract was due to end, and last year reached an out of court settlement withdrawing a claim against the Government, the GFSC and the Minister for Financial Services at the Employment Tribunal.
Barrass also caused some controversy during her time heading the regulator when she accepted a non-executive role on the board of PwC's UK Public Interest Body.
She was also caught up in a lawsuit, with Gibraltar lawyer Nick Cruz claiming defamation following media statements made by the commission after the collapse of Enterprise Insurance - a firm where Cruz was a non-executive chairman.
At the time of her appointment, an FMA spokesman said its board was aware of these matters from the outset as the result of its due diligence and was completely confident that they raise no issues of concern.
"The employment case is subject to the usual confidentiality requirements, was settled over a year ago and was considered of no relevance.
"The PwC appointment was supported and approved by the chair and board of the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission and was subject to standard conflict management policies."
The FMA's board also carefully considered the context of the defamation case and regarded it as an occupational risk associated with a high profile regulatory role of this type, the spokesman said.
Barrass herself says the matters were well covered at the time of her appointment.
"I was completely transparent with the FMA board through the recruitment process."
As to the defamation case Barrass says it is an occupational hazard that comes with taking a high profile role.
Barrass says her first priority will be getting to know the people working for her as well as the FMA's stakeholders and getting to know what is important to them.
On top of that, she is keen to push forward the regulator's te ao Māori (the Māori world view) strategy and to make sure it is embedding the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi in what it does.
Then she will be looking at what the FMA needs to do to prepare for the expansion of its remit.
"We are in a tight labour market at the moment in New Zealand. Every second day you are hearing about it in the news. What capability do we need and where are we going to find that and how can we make sure we have that in place in a way that is going to fit with what we need to deliver it when we need to deliver it?"
She is hoping to ensure a smooth transition to the new regime for the banks and insurers.
"For me, I'm wanting to work very closely with the firms affected, really with the outcome of ensuring quite a calm implementation. I want to very early on be working to manage that they understand our expectations. That we are working through with them what it means to have a programme to deliver fair conduct to customers."
Barrass says she has been lucky to have some fantastic opportunities in her career.
"Getting the BBRS [Business Banking Resolution Service] up and going was filling an important gap in the dispute resolution market in the UK. In my work in Gibraltar - it was a really fascinating jurisdiction to work in."
Unlike New Zealand, she says Gibraltar is primarily an exporter of financial services.
"So most of the consumers we were protecting were in other countries. They were households in the UK and elsewhere in Europe."
She also helped to regulate the legal sector in the UK.
"It was really about bringing the regulation of solicitors and law firms into modern times to support the strong competition in the legal services sector that ultimately was focused on the range and access to legal services by UK consumers."
She says her big regret about working in the UK was the 2016 Brexit vote.
"Having spent so much of my career supporting and working with European regulators in implementing regulatory approaches in the UK and Gibraltar, working to that common good of establishing a single market for financial services, to be on the cusp of that being unpicked felt quite sad."
Born in the UK, Barrass' parents emigrated to Christchurch in 1974 when she was a 7-year-old.
She lived there for 15 years, attending primary and secondary school and then Canterbury University, where she completed a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in economics.
Barrass then moved to Wellington to do her honours year at Victoria University before taking a role at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, first in the communications team and then moving into her speciality - economics.
"I got interested in economics because I was interested in politics. I came from a traditional Labour family and what interested me was how do you increase the size of the cake? How do you make sure that the economy works for everyone?
"That just got me interested in economics, which was if you have got more to distribute then everyone can be better off. That sounds quite idealistic but I was quite passionate about studying economics and not studying politics because for me understanding how economies worked, understanding the levers you could use to promote economic growth, were the way in which you could improve the lives of everyone. So I came into it from quite an idealistic perspective."
She still holds that view despite living in one of the biggest capitalist cities of the world - London.
"I do really. My whole career has really been interested in public service and how do you marshall the forces of the market, forces of capitalism, in a way that makes the best of what they are good for - which is creating things that people need - feeding, clothing, housing people, at the same time as keeping a grip on the things that don't work well with capitalism - so the insider trading, monopolies, things that lead to unfair outcomes.
"It continues to drive me and that is why I really went into regulation."
After leaving the Reserve Bank, Barrass went to London to study for her Masters in economics and reconnect with family, living with her grandmother for the first six months of her time there.
Since then she has come back to New Zealand sporadically.
"All three of my maternity leaves I came back for decent chunks of time. I would stay with my dad because my mum and sister had moved to the UK once I started having children.
"My dad finally moved back [to the UK] after my third child was born. I was coming back really regularly until about 2002/03 and then I just got swept up into the whole bringing up kids, keeping your career going at the same time.
"My immediate family were all in London with me and before I knew it, it was 2011/12 and I hadn't been back to New Zealand for nearly 10 years."
But she says the more time went by, the more she wanted to come back to New Zealand to live.
"I thought, I don't just want to come back for a two-week holiday with the kids because that won't feel like enough. What I really want to do is reconnect back. It has taken me about 10 years to get to this point."
Fortunately, she still has family here and close friends in Wellington where she will live and regularly commute to Auckland for work.
"I feel very fortunate because I landed in Wellington on the 19th [of January] - a friend had driven up to Rotorua to pick me up from MIQ and take me back to Wellington and I haven't had a weekend when I haven't had at least two or three brunches, dinners, drinks with old friends."
Her children are now grown-up and supported the move.
"I spoke to them a lot before deciding to apply for the role and they were very positive. They had heard me talking for the last 10 years about how I really wanted to go back and live in NZ again and how I would love to take my skills back and use what I have built up since I've left.
"They said: 'mum, you are not a grand mum yet, now is the time for you to go and do it'. When my daughter, who is 25, put it to me I thought: she is absolutely right, because they are at an age they are independent - apart from when they need money from me - and my parents are still pretty healthy, so if I am going to do this, now is the time to do it."
• Role: Chief executive Financial Markets Authority
• Age: 55
• Education: Bachelor of Commerce majoring in economics, Canterbury University; Masters in economics, London School of Economics.
• Career: Began her career as an economist at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. Regulatory manager at the UK Financial Services Authority from 1995 to 2004 before becoming a director of the London Investment Banking Association from 2004 to 2009. Executive director of the Solicitors Regulation Authority from 2009 to 2014 before becoming chief executive of the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission until 2019. Headed the Business Banking Resolution Service in the UK until April 2021. February 2022 joined the Financial Markets Authority.
• Family: Three adult children, from 19 to 25.
• What was the last movie you saw? Steven Spielberg's 'West Side Story' on Christmas Eve. One of my favourite musicals. Loved the original, love this one – it's so good. I want to see it a second time!
• What was the last book you read? 'Tombland' by C.J. Sansom. It's the 7th in the Matthew Shardlake series about a lawyer and detective in Tudor England. Absolutely compelling crime writing by someone who is steeped in the history of the times.
• What was the last overseas holiday you went on? I spent four weeks in France (Dordogne) and northeastern Spain in August last year. Took my car and my two dogs, Charlie and Freddy. First half was with my sister and her family in France and the second part in Spain with my son Ben (aged 22) – who speaks Spanish more or less fluently from our time in Gibraltar.
Chief executive Antonia Watson says the flat result reflects the state of the economy.