The Solicitors Regulation Authority has suffered its second high-profile loss in the space of four months with the resignation of executive director Samantha Barrass.

Barrass (pictured) has been appointed chief executive of the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission and will leave the SRA in February.

Her departure comes on the back of SRA chief executive Antony Townsend announcing his intention to leave his post in May. A successor for his role has yet to be announced.

The commission is the financial services regulator in Gibraltar, so Barrass will be returning to financial services having joined the SRA in 2009 from a career in the UK financial services sector. 

During her time at the SRA, Barrass has been at the forefront of the SRA’s high-profile reform of legal services regulation.

Townsend said: ‘I am particularly grateful to Samantha for her leadership in implementing outcomes-focused regulation and the framework for our licensing of ABSs [alternative business structures].

‘In addition, the development of our risk-based approach to regulation has been constant throughout her career here; first in her work with the risk centre and now through her leadership of the R-View change programme. I wish her every success in her new role.’