It's official, there's going to be at least one vacancy in the City of London in the not-too-distant future. Clara Furse, the iconic CEO of the London Stock Exchange, is on her way out and will be replaced by the end of next year at the earliest. That may be some way off, but news reports this morning say that the LSE has already hired a City headhunter to find a replacement for Furse. "Clara has been with the exchange for eight years and it's natural that the board is thinking about succession planning," says an LSE spokesperson.

As the top-level resumes are sent to the LSE, it must be sobering for Furse to know that the end is nigh. Her time at the exchange has been nothing if not colourful. Since joining in early 2001, the Canada-born CEO has fended off numerous take-over bids from rival international exchanges and presided over the technology roadmap that saw the introduction of the record-breaking TradElect and Infolect trading and market data platforms. Not all that long ago, she was hailed as the saviour of the LSE, especially after clinching the Borsa Italiana acquisition last year. In June she was even recognised in the Queen's Birthday honours list, becoming Dame Clara Furse.

But the times they are a-changing. Amidst growing market turmoil, an increasing number of competitiors - Chi-X, Turquoise, Nasdaq OMX and BATS - are forcefully knocking at the exchange's door and it has proven itself far from resilient in response. Not only has its share price tumbled, but a major 7-hour systems outage on 8th September and the failure of Lehman Brothers - which it had partnered to form a dark liquidity pool - did little to restore confidence. Serious work needs to be done at the LSE to stay on top of the market and in the long-term, the board no longer sees Furse as the one to lead it.