Bend like a Reed

So, it's now pretty much official: FD Alison Reed is to leave Standard Life after less than two years in the job. There's still some speculation about exactly why, but her rumoured successor, Prudential's head of risk Andy Crossley, comes from a financial services background. So perhaps the thinking is that the retail experiment (Reed was FD at Marks & Sparks) has failed.

Except... There's a pretty solid precedent for a woman FD moving from retail to financial services very successfully. I'm talking about Helen Weir, of course, FD at Lloyds TSB which is a somewhat weightier beast than poor old Standard Life. Maybe it's something about those odd chaps in insurance... Anyway, as Weir once told me, one of the great things about being in the finance function is that you can see connections and learn lessons moving between sectors in a way that ops guys often can't.

Still, Reed won't be too upset. Her £900,000 pay-off is almost exactly what the average wage-earner could expect to receive in their whole working life.