Ron Sandler, the man who shepherded Northern Rock back from the abyss after the former building society became the first UK bank to be bailed out by the taxpayer in the credit crunch, looks set to take on another major job.

The veteran financial executive is reportedly to become executive chairman of Pearl, the insurance group.

Sandler, Northern Rock's part-time chairman, was said to have been in the running to become chairman of Lloyds Banking Group before that job was taken by Sir Win Bischoff.

Sandler's expertise as a crisis manager originally landed him the Northern Rock job.

He played a significant role in saving the Lloyd's of London insurance market in the 1990s when it was threatened with extinction because of mismanagement and spiralling claims.Later, he was chief operating officer at NatWest before its takeover by Royal Bank of Scotland and also headed Gordon Brown's investigation of the savings industry.

Pearl, a so-called zombie fund running closed life insurance businesses, is best known for being the money-making enterprise of former PizzaExpress tycoon Hugh Osmond.