Jon Pain's appointment as managing director of retail at the Financial Services Authority (FSA) is very much part of the regulator's post-Northern Rock makeover. Having admitted that it missed a series of warnings that the Newcastle-based bank was heading for disaster, the watchdog is keen to draw a line under the embarrassment and get on with being a tougher, more directive regulator.

Mr Pain, at present the managing director of Cheltenham & Gloucester, the mortgage lender owned by Lloyds TSB, will replace Clive Briault, the only person at the FSA to lose their job over the Rock debacle. The FSA was criticised for allowing Mr Briault to leave with a £612,000 goodbye package.

Hector Sants, the FSA's chief executive, is often at pains to point out that the FSA is not staffed by stuffy bureaucrats. This appointment should go some way to proving him right. Mr Pain is a 30-year financial services veteran. He joined Lloyds TSB in 1973 and has worked as managing director of the bank's general insurance, private banking and stockbroking businesses. He chaired the Council of Mortgage Lenders in 2006 and 2007. Sources at the bank said that he was highly regarded by colleagues.

In another sign that it was severing ties with its old guard, the FSA said yesterday that David Kenmir, who was covering the retail role while Mr Briault's replacement was found, would leave the watchdog in the new year. As the former managing director of regulatory services, Mr Kenmir had been linked to the FSA's failures in regulating Northern Rock. Mr Sants has admitted many times that the the watchdog's standard of supervision of the Rock was unacceptable.

Mr Sants said yesterday that he understood Mr Kenmir's desire for a fresh challenge. “I want to thank David . . . for his strong leadership of retail at a difficult time,” he said. Mr Kenmir will remain as the FSA's chief operating officer until his replacement is found.

The FSA also appointed Clive Adamson as director of its major retail groups division yesterday. Mr Adamson has been covering the job since April, after joining the FSA as a senior adviser in 1998. He worked at Bank of America and sat on the council of the British Bankers' Association.

Sir Callum McCarthy, the outgoing FSA chairman, said last week that the next 12 months would be difficult. The FSA is keen to ensure that it has the right staff to ride out the storm.