Alastair Marsh, the newly appointed chief executive of Lloyd’s Register (LR), will not formally take over from Richard Sadler until October but he is already buzzing with ideas.

There will be no major revolution at the venerable 255-year-old class society but Marsh promises to stamp his own identity on it — both internally and externally.

“Given I am an internal successor, you can be assured it will be a smooth succession but I think you will see a difference in management style,” he said.