Visa swipes Bradford & Bingley chief for the top job

Christopher Rodrigues, the chief executive of specialist mortgage firm Bradford & Bingley, surprised investors yesterday by announcing that he is leaving to take the top job at Visa.

The 54-year-old has been at B&B since 1996, but will leave at the end of March to become chief executive and president of Visa International in San Francisco.

He will be replaced by 42-year-old Steven Crawshaw, a relative unknown in the industry, who runs B&B's lending and savings business. Mr Crawshaw joined B&B in 1999 to help with its conversion from building society to bank, and then became strategy director.

Chairman Rod Kent said that he had been groomed for the top job for two years. He had previously been PA to a Lloyds TSB director, and before that held senior positions at Cheltenham & Gloucester.

The news comes as some analysts are questioning the strategy of the firm, which has concentrated on specialist mortgages that some consider risky. It sells buy-to-let mortgages, with about 25% of the market. It also sells "self-certification"home loans, which have been criticised for allowing people to overextend themselves.

The most extreme criticism has come from stockbroker Durlacher, which issued a report predicting that house prices would crash by up to 45% and warned that B&B and other specialist firms would be hit hardest.

Mr Crawshaw dismissed the analysis and said he would not change the strategy of B&B. "I have lived and breathed it for five years, I am happy with it," he said. "I am beginning at a time when a lot of regulatory fog is beginning to lift ... that is the time when you can accelerate the strategy rather than continue to struggle with it."

Mr Rodrigues is a former chief executive of Thomas Cook. He joined B&B when it was a building society and drove it through the demutualisation and flotation.

A spokesperson for B&B said there will be no "golden goodbye" payment to Mr Rodrigues, and that he will be paid a salary up until he leaves this month. He may be paid a bonus for the three months of this year, but this has not been finalised. His pay in 2002 reached £772,000. Visa will not release his salary details as it is a private company.