Last month, after months of speculation, it was announced that the new director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) was going to be Nick Ephgrave.

Ephgrave was the former chief constable for Surrey Police, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, and most recently held a role that overlapped with his responsibilities as assistant commissioner, the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s criminal justice co-ordination committee.

In this article for FT Adviser, Neil Swift and Craig Hogg write why Ephgrave’s appointment marks a radical departure for the SFO, which since its creation in 1988 has always had lawyers at its helm.

They discuss what the appointment will mean for the SFO, some of the challenges that lie ahead and what practical issues will need to be addressed, especially in the light of two reviews of the organisation’s recent failures in a couple of cases.