Richard Pym seems to have a penchant for troubled mortgage lenders. He was chief executive of Alliance & Leicester until last summer - although he left before the bank began to feel the pain from the credit crunch. Late last year he agreed to be chief executive of Northern Rock as part of JC Flowers' failed bid for the lender. Now he is taking over as chief executive of Bradford & Bingley (B&B), which last week finally raised £400 million through a rights issue that had first been announced in May.

The appointment of Mr Pym, 58, will raise speculation about the future of B&B, especially after Alliance & Leicester finally succumbed to a takeover by Santander last month. Some analysts expect Mr Pym to follow suit and to engage with possible suitors for B&B. Yet Mr Pym has also proved that he can say “no” to takover bids: during his five years at the helm of Alliance & Leicester, he rejected an approach by Crédit Agricole, the French bank.

Whatever the future of B&B, most City commentators agree that Mr Pym is a safe pair of hands. So safe, in fact, that he stepped down from Alliance & Leicester last summer amid accusations of being too cautious and letting rivals such as Northern Rock take the lead in the mortgage lending market. In hindsight, his policy may have saved the lender from worse difficulties than it has experienced.

Mr Pym also won widespread praise for his decision to focus A&L on core businesses, selling the bank's credit card business to MBNA at the top of the market.

While watching the credit crunch unfold from the sidelines, Mr Pym has kept his hand in. He is chairman of Halfords, the car parts retailer, and is a non-executive director of Old Mutual, the insurance group.

Before joining Alliance & Leicester in 1992, Mr Pym held several prominent positions in Burton Group, including finance director of Top Shop and Debenhams. He remembers his time there fondly, as well as his colleagues at that time, who included Sir Stuart Rose, executive chairman of Marks & Spencer, Terry Green, former head of Bhs and Debenhams, and Angus Munro, former chief executive of Matalan.

Mr Pym, who completed a degree in physics at Warwick University before becoming an accountant, is married with two sons and lives in Hertfordshire. His interests include watching cricket, supporting Arsenal Football Club and reading.