Profile: Enter the man from the Pru: The Stock Exchange's new chief tells William Kay that he's his own man and it's time to end the mistakes; Michael Lawrence

WHAT IS it about being chief executive of the Stock Exchange that attracts people who crave the limelight? Peter Rawlins, who departed in ignominy last March after the collapse of the disastrous Taurus computerised settlement project, was a frustrated thespian whose early search for fame took him as far as an appearance on Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game.

Michael Lawrence, who was revealed last week as Rawlins's successor, has never been that desperate. Instead of the stage, he contemplated the House of Commons and even went as far as to become an approved Conservative parliamentary candidate.

Lawrence's equivalent of the Generation Game was to mount a soapbox on politics, John Major style, at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park. But the hecklers won out in the end.

'You could never last longer than about 20 minutes,' he admits. 'Then the hecklers would get to you. You'd either go completely dry or burst out laughing. And then you jumped down and the next speaker jumped up.'

But it was not just the hecklers that changed his mind about his direction in life. By that time Lawrence was already a partner in Price Waterhouse, one of the giant accountancy firms. An MP's pay just did not match up.

Although it is easy to draw parallels with Rawlins - both are accountants; both energetic and shortish in stature - Lawrence is understandably keen to distance himself from his predecessor. 'My background is substantially different,' he sniffs. 'I've never been anyone's PA, and I've always, in that sense, been my own person.'

As Rawlins departed eight months ago, Lawrence can hardly have been at the top of the headhunters' hit-list. More cautious souls shied away from trying to revive an organisation that in recent years has lost much of its regulatory role and is being bypassed increasingly by international investors and securities houses.

Lawrence sees his first priority as rebuilding the Stock Exchange's battered reputation and reviving confidence among its members and customers. Chief among these is Prudential Corporation, Britain's biggest investor, where Lawrence is finance director. 'I believe people want the Exchange to succeed,' he says. 'I don't think they would hire someone like me, who doesn't have a background in the market, is known to have views and likes change, if they just wanted a quiet burial. We can't afford many more mistakes.'

Both Lawrence and his boss at the Pru, Mick Newmarch, are only children, brought up in humble circumstances in north London. Newmarch's childhood was undoubtedly tougher - he was orphaned at 14, when his father died, and rejected by his stepmother. But Lawrence has a similar chip on his shoulder; one that keeps him driving forward, continually twisting and turning in his search for new challenges.

'My mother was 40 when she had me, so it was a close-run thing,' he recalls. 'Sometimes, in that sort of background, maybe you work harder. Maybe you want to succeed more. I just happen to like work. But if you psychoanalyse that, perhaps it's just a wish to be successful. I don't know.'

Lawrence was born in Muswell Hill and grew up in Harrow. Even though he was offered an assisted place at Mill Hill public school, his parents could not afford to send him there and he went to Wembley County grammar school instead.

His mother was a part-time book-keeper and his father was a solicitor's legal executive at Gray's Inn. 'We didn't have a lot of money,' he remembers. 'Those sorts of jobs don't pay.'

He was a bright boy, but his loner's instinct began to assert itself at school.

'My first love was chemistry, but everyone did chemistry so I thought I'd do physics - and in my sort of school you had limited options. But having got my degree in physics I had to go and do maths for my PhD: a different challenge, you see.'

He rejected an academic career because, as he delicately put it, he was 'emotionally separate from many academics. I was left-wing Tory, but a lot of them were left, left, left, and I didn't feel a community of interest with them. It's also a terribly closed world, where you just circulate with the same group of people. I didn't really want that for the next 40 years.'

Lawrence's plan was to become a computer consultant, but he wanted a business qualification first. That led him to Price Waterhouse.

He qualified in three years, became a partner in another six and forgot about being a consultant. But he was never going to be happy auditing the books for small-time widget-makers. He was determined to remain the rebel without a cause.

'My formative years were in the 1970s,' says Lawrence, 'when I was very much able to do my own thing. In the 1980s I met up with (controversial entrepreneur) Michael Ashcroft, when he was still in his garage in Stoke Poges, and looked at many of his acquisitions for him as he was developing Hawley, subsequently ADT. I was a fairly free spirit - much less stereotyped than the average person at PW.'

Ian Brindle, PW's current senior partner, says of Lawrence: 'He has a restless brain and restless feet. He is always looking for a new challenge. We disagreed over loads of things. But although he always has an opinion, if you construct your argument well he will change his mind. But woe betide you if you don't construct your argument.'

In 1975 Lawrence began advising the Department of Transport on London Docklands. In 1986 he became lead adviser on the privatisation of the National Bus Company, when 62 subsidiaries were sold in 27 months.

By this time he was becoming disillusioned with Price Waterhouse. 'What they did in the later 1980s was to focus much more on industry specialisms,' he says. 'And that was boring to me. I didn't want to be that boxed in. I just wanted to do something different, and the Pru was an interesting opportunity.'

From being a senior partner in Price Waterhouse he moved to a 138-year-old company that had never had a finance director or an external executive director, and was regarded as one of the mustiest institutions in the City.

'There were a lot of problems there,' Lawrence points out, 'what with the losses at the estate agency and everything else. And a major cultural change was needed on top of all that - never mind the internecine warfare with actuaries and God knows who. So it was not the obvious thing to do. Like with this new job, everyone's saying 'Why are you doing this, when you can just sit there and wait for Mick to drop off?' '

But Lawrence feels that he is getting out of the Pru at the right time, arguing that its preoccupations in the next few years are going to be with the regulatory environment rather than any fancy tricks in the finance department.

'I believe that the industry made a bad mistake a few years ago, in not giving more than it gave to regulators and pressure groups; and their almost-refusal to shift means that they will end up with a bigger disclosure regime than they might otherwise have had,' he says.

This year Lawrence has also been chairman of the Hundred Group, the finance directors' trade union, where he has been belabouring the Accounting Standards Board and others to stop producing new requirements.

David Tweedie, head of the ASB, confirms that negotiations with Lawrence have been vigorous. 'He fights his corner,' Tweedie admits, 'but they have been very helpful. I don't always agree with him, but I always find him very fair. He says what he thinks, and I do too.'

Lawrence's hobbies are characteristically individualistic. He is a qualified twin-engine pilot, able to fly in commercial airspace in all weathers. He flew his three children to Denmark when they wanted to visit Legoland, and he has organised trips to France for himself and his friends to stock up on duty-frees.

His wife, Maureen, whom he met at Exeter University, says: 'He flies because there is so much to do when you're up there. It's one of the few activities that engages his whole attention. You couldn't imagine him gardening.'

Lawrence assuages his conscience about being away from home so much by taking his family on boating holidays.

'I go bareboat chartering every year in the Caribbean because as a hard-working soul I never see my kids,' he explains. 'So I conceived the idea of going on a sailing holiday, because that way we'd be contained within 43 feet of each other and we'd jolly well have to live with each other. It's great for bond- building if you're not home in the evenings.'

The uphill task facing him at the Stock Exchange may mean that he is going to be seeking refuge in boats and planes more than ever in the next few years.

(Photographs omitted)