For the first time for 21 years, responsibility for the efficiency of the UK's government borrowing will change hands in June.
Jessica Pulay will take over then as chief executive of the UK Debt Management Office, succeeding Sir Robert Stheeman, who is retiring after having led Gilt issuance and overseen the development of the market since 2003.
Stheeman and the DMO are highly regarded in the bond market, having steered the national debt as calmly as possible to its present £2.5tr.
Nevertheless, Pulay will have her work cut out for her.
The UK faces a record year of borrowing ahead, with a net financing requirement for the financial year that began this month of £277.7bn. At such a time, the Treasury is increasingly under pressure from the government to achieve the best possible price for its debt.
Scrutiny of whether it gets good value for money is increasing.
In May 2023, a Competition and Markets Authority investigation found five of the UK's primary dealers had shared competitively sensitive information about Gilt pricing between 2009 and 2013 via online chatrooms.
The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee flagged the incident in a report published on March 5.
The UK's first syndication of its financial year — priced last week on April 26 — went off in typical DMO fashion. The sovereign raised £6.75bn with a 30 year tap, of which 91% went to UK investors. Buyers put in £91.5bn of orders and the trade was priced at the tighter end of the guidance range released by the lead banks that morning.
The deal got a new fiscal year of funding off to a positive start. But that was just 2.5% of this year's borrowing requirement.
The DMO has a hill to climb, as global government bond yields continue to rise, driven by the US economy outperforming. Meanwhile war rages on in the Middle East and Ukraine. Like many other countries, the UK also faces a general election by January.
Also pushing yields higher will be even more supply to the Gilt market, as the Bank of England powers ahead with its programme of quantitative tightening.
After announcing it would undertake an additional £100bn of QT between October 2023 and September 2024, the Bank will aim to reduce its holdings to £650bn this year. On January 31, the stock was £738bn; it has already fallen to £704bn.
Underlying these immediate strains, the DMO is facing a long term shift in demand for its bonds. With much of the UK pensions and savings industry approaching maturity, appetite for long-dated and index-linked Gilts is forecast to decline. That could mean the DMO has to issue more shorter maturities, which is likely to raise yields in that part of the curve and speed up the need to refinance.
With all this ahead, it's not surprising the Public Accounts Committee stressed the need for a "clear succession plan" after Stheeman's departure.
He has ensured the DMO's stability for two decades, helped by key officials such as Martin Duffell, head of dealing for 25 years until his retirement in September 2023.
Stheeman shares this concern. When Duffell announced his retirement last year Stheeman stressed the importance of "institutional memory".
With this in mind, the Treasury has chosen a continuity candidate to lead the DMO.
Pulay, the longserving co-head of policy and markets, joined the office in 2015. She knows the inner workings of the DMO well, and its relationship with the Treasury, which public sector bond bankers say is a key element of the job.
She is well versed in funding, having previously been deputy head of funding at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. She was appointed over a handful of other candidates including investment bankers.
Stheeman told GlobalCapital last week: "[Pulay's appointment] is very welcome news for the market and the DMO. It sends a strong signal about the importance of continuity, both internally and for the market and the Treasury.
"This is particularly important in a year of record issuance for the DMO and net supply to the market. It sends a key message that it's business as usual."
Pulay's experience plays in her favour, but she will need every ounce of her talents. During Stheeman's tenure, the Gilt stock sextupled in absolute terms, and tripled as a share of GDP.
A steady hand and business as usual are the right approach for the DMO and the right image to project. But what events and the market throw at it are likely to be anything but usual.