With his overflowing head of white hair and a liking for expressing his views in public, Joseph Yam Chi-kwong is atypical of Hong Kong's civil servants. There has been much to disagree with him about in the 14 years he has been in charge of the Monetary Authority, including a salary which makes him the world's highest-paid central banker.
Nonetheless, there is cause to be concerned about the reasons for his ousting in 2009 by Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen. Officially, it is because he has reached the retirement age of 60 but, by that measure, Mr Tsang himself (now 63) should already have made way for a younger person.
There is no doubt that Mr Yam wanted to stay on, and there was no pressure from the financial sector here or abroad to suggest that a new face was needed. Nor is there any indication that his removal will lead to fresh thinking at the authority. Indeed, rather the opposite. His replacement is, according to all reports, to be a former deputy.
There are three possible reasons for Mr Yam's demise. They are not mutually exclusive, so all may have played a part. None reflects well on Mr Tsang.
First, there are policy issues, the currency peg and the 'through train' for H and A shares. Mr Yam, who was a middle-ranking official of the then tiny Exchange Fund office at the time of its creation in 1983, has always been a stout defender of the peg to the US dollar.
However, he is also a sufficiently well-informed observer of currency history to know that such things do not last forever. It is necessary to think of when change may be to Hong Kong's advantage, and how that could be achieved without being disruptive.
Mr Yam may even believe that, if there needs to be a peg, it would be more sensible (as I wrote before its 1983 adoption) to link it to a basket of currencies such as the Special Drawing Rights - the International Monetary Fund's unit of account. However, Mr Tsang has a bureaucrat's fear of change, particularly if it seems to involve loss of face on the part of officials who keep saying it will not change.