Mr David Drumm is from Skerries, Co Dublin, and trained as a chartered accountant. He began his career at Deloitte & Touche. From there he moved to the venture capital firm Enterprise Equity and three years later joined Bastow Charleton's accountancy practice in Dublin.

In 1993, he started working in Anglo Irish Bank's core banking operations, which are focused on lending to small and medium-sized businesses.

In 1998 Mr Drumm moved to Boston to establish a US banking division for Anglo Irish.

He worked closely with the US regulatory authorities to get the venture up and running and recruited a team including local employees and members of Anglo's Irish operations and became the company's representative there.

Last year, the US banking operations contributed $40 million (€32.6 million) to group profits and had a loan book of $1.5 billion.

In 2003, he was appointed head of banking in Dublin and the US, a division which generated 45 per cent of group revenues.

In this role he oversaw the bank's lending team.

He worked closely with Mr Tom Browne, who was also a candidate for the chief executive's position.

Mr Drumm is described as having a "very engaging personality" and good people skills.

"He is very popular internally and well regarded," one source said.

A fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland, he is married to Lorraine and has two daughters, aged 9 and 6.

They live in Malahide, Co Dublin.