The business on: Charlotte Hogg, Executive director, Santander

Do I know her?

You may be more familiar with her parents. Her father, Douglas, was an MP for more than 30 years, stepping down at last year's election. He may be best remembered, in the end, for claiming the cost of moat cleaning on his parliamentary expenses. Her mother, Sarah, now Baroness Hogg, is an economist who was a prominent adviser to John Major.

But she's not gone into politics?

Nor the law (her grandfather and great-grandfather were lawyers who both became Lord Chancellor). "You can have too much of a good thing in one family," she once told her local newspaper. But her career has been equally impressive, if not more so.

In what way?

She was appointed yesterday by Santander as head of retail distribution and intermediaries, which basically means being in charge of the bank's high street operations. She replaces Alison Brittain, who is about to become one of Britain's most high-profile female bankers by following her former boss Antonio Horta Osorio to Lloyds for an executive role there.

So Ms Hogg is in an even more ignoble profession than politics?

That's what's known as a loaded question. But she has always worked in financial services. She had a stint at the Bank of England and spent 10 years working in the US with management consultant McKinsey and the banking giant Morgan Stanley. She ran credit card company Goldfish, spun out of Morgan Stanley, for a while, helping to broker its eventual sale to Barclays. And for the past couple of years, she has been the British boss of Experian, the credit information specialist.

Any other strings to her bow?

Oh yes. She's a non-executive director of BBC Worldwide and a governor of Nottingham Trent University.

Her parents must be very proud

Indeed – and don't rule out her following them into politics in the end. She's only 40, so there's plenty more time for executive roles and experience that would make her a prime candidate to follow her mother into the House of Lords.