Few people will remember that the German financial supervisory authority BaFin was once made up of three authorities. In May 2002, the supervisory offices for banking, insurance and securities trading were merged. Verena Ross, who worked at the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in London at the time and received inquiries about the process from the German side, remembers this very well. The British financial regulator has a similar history and was also merged from several institutions. One of the largest mergers of public institutions in the financial sector, Ross recalls.

Born in Hamburg, she has been working in European financial supervision for around 25 years. She has been the head of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) in Paris since the end of 2021. Ross comes from a family of merchants in a cosmopolitan city. She decided to study sinology in 1987. This did not seem to be the path to a career in financial supervision or a picture-book career in public institutions. She had a wide range of interests and could also have imagined studying history and archaeology. She did not want to finish her studies with Sinology alone. She therefore switched to the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, where it was possible to study Chinese and economics as a double degree.

In 1994, she started her career at the Bank of England (BoE). Even today, she is still surprised that the national bank hired foreigners. The central bank in London was looking for talented people who spoke exotic languages and were familiar with countries such as China. That's how Ross came to the Bank of England - she didn't want to be a supervisor from the start. She held various positions at the BoE as an economist and analyst.

In 1998, the decision was made in London to create a unified supervisor. Ross was given the task of helping to shape the new unit. As the office manager of the then Chairman, many decisions passed through her hands and the challenge of setting up a new authority appealed to the now 56-year-old.

Ross feels European through and through. When the decision was made to set up European financial supervisory authorities, she applied for a job at ESMA. That was in 2011, and as Executive Director she was part of the management team.

As usual, her contract as head of ESMA runs for five years, that is until 2026. Ross could extend her contract with ESMA once again. „Whether I aim to do that or what comes after the first term of office is currently open.“ In general, working in the public sector offers many opportunities and challenges.

However, an exchange between the public and private sectors is important. „In this way, supervisory institutions can benefit from the experience of the private sector. Because the real market knowledge can often be found in the companies,“ says Ross. A sensible cooling-off period is important in the transition from one sector to the other. She does not want to rule out the possibility of switching to the private sector again in her life. However, it is clear that she wants to stay in Europe. A switch to the SEC, for example, is not an option for her, partly because she is not American. „However, somewhat more active monitoring with quicker interventions, as is sometimes practiced in the USA, would also make sense in Europe.“