Ms Oppenheimer has a number of directorships at leading businesses and will relinquish some of them after becoming chair of HL. She will also become chair of the HL Nomination Committee from 7 February.

Ms Oppenheimer currently has roles as senior independent director and chair of Remuneration Committee of Tesco, non-executive director and chair of the Remuneration Committee of Whitbread plc and non-executive director of AXA Group and Worldpay. Her previous experience includes roles at Barclays on the retail banking side. She is also founder of CameoWorks, a consumer-focused boutique advisory firm which works with fintech businesses. In the last 5 years, she has also held a directorship at NCR Corp.

In other board changes announced by HL today, current chair Mike Evans will stand down and retire from the board from 7 February and Chris Barling will stand down as a non-executive director and the senior independent non-executive director from the same date.  Shirley Garrood has been appointed senior independent non-exec director from 7 February 2018, succeeding Chris Barling.

Chris Hill, chief executive of Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "We are delighted to announce Deanna's appointment.  The knowledge and experience that she has built up throughout her executive and non-executive career, with its focus around customer engagement and technology, make her an ideal chair to lead the board into our next phase of growth.

“Mr Evans joined the board of Hargreaves Lansdown in September 2006 prior to the IPO in May 2007 and his integrity and leadership style has contributed strongly to the development of the board and our governance framework. We have benefitted from his extensive experience and challenge as the group has grown into the market leading, client-focused, FTSE100 business it is today. On behalf of the board and indeed from everyone at HL, I would like to express my gratitude to Mike for his immense contribution to the group.”

Deanna Oppenheimer, chair-elect of Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "Hargreaves Lansdown is an innovative market leader for very good reasons and I was immediately attracted by the people, their values and the client first culture.

“Against a backdrop of a huge savings gap, political uncertainty and technological change, our challenge is to continue to make people's financial lives as easy as we can and help them to save and invest with confidence. I am excited by the opportunities ahead of us and am looking forward to playing my part in the HL story."

Ms Oppenheimer will end two of her other non-HL director roles by mid-2018.