A good thing, considering Ms Knight’s five-year tenure at the helm of the British Bankers Association has coincided with the industry’s darkest hour.

The 61-year-old has been quoted in the press as saying “I am who I am – if there is a fight to be had, I'm not going to run away from it.”

The former politician and chemistry major has always been a staunch supporter of the importance of the financial services industry to the UK. She has fought against the encroachment of excessive regulation from Europe, and the dangers of populist banker-bashing at the cost of British jobs.

Ms Knight also presided over the BBA’s controversial role in defending banks over the insurance mis-selling scandal, that had put her neck on the line.

Once described as a “firecracker” by a former banking chief executive – Ms Knight has herself lashed out at the undisciplined greed of bankers themselves.

The mother of two started her career working for Air Products, an American industrial gas company but she soon set up on her own, forming, Knight & Cook, a metallurgical processor.

Her husband, David, was the Knight and she was the Cook. She kept the name despite the marriage later breaking down.

Soon enough her attention moved to politics. It was the heyday of the 'People’s Republic of South Yorkshire' under David Blunkett. And Ms Knight – a true blue – became a Conservative councillor on Labour-dominated Sheffield council.

She lost out to Edwina Currie for the High Peak constituency in Derbyshire but was selected for the nearby Erewash seat, becoming its MP in 1992.

In 1995 she became Ken Clarke’s economic secretary and is said to have been instrumental in bringing in the £2 coin.

Ms Knight lost her seat in the Tory bloodbath of 1997 but became chief executive of the Association of Private Client Investment Managers and Stockbrokers, or Apcims.

In January 2007 she moved into her role as chief executive designate of the British Bankers Association, a trade association that has traditionally relied on quiet diplomacy to make its case – a style a million miles away the political rough-and-tumble of the House of Commons, and one she will finally give up after almost five years at the helm.