Bradford & Bingley has a solid and conservative ring to it the kind of company you would feel happy about leaving your money with, and the sort of investment that would deliver reliable, but not inspiring, growth. It is not, therefore, unreasonable to expect its chief executive to be grey-haired, avuncular and perhaps a little ponderous. So Christopher Rodrigues comes as a surprise. He has thick curly hair, a Cheshire Cat grin and fast-flowing conversation that ripples with analogies and anecdotes. Even his name doesn't really fit the bill Rodrigues conjures up a composer, an author, even a bullfighter long before the image of the chief executive of a 150-year-old UK financial services company on the verge of the FTSE 100 index comes to mind.

But then again, Bradford & Bingley isn't exactly what it sounds like either. It is significant that Mr Bradford and Mr Bingley's sober pair of black bowler hats, for many years crystallised in the company's logo, have recently multiplied and gone technicolour. Bradford & Bingley not only demutualised and listed on the London Stock Exchange a year ago, but it has also transformed itself from a building society - or mortgage manufacturer - to a financial services distributor. In Rodrigues' words: 'As a mutual, we were effectively a manufacturer with factory outlets now we have become a retailer which happens to manufacture some of the things we sell.'