AGED 52 next birthday, there is time for Mr Wray to pull in at least one new career and maybe more. He is not about to retire.
Mr Wray, who was paid more than £1m last year, said: "Severn Trent is in great shape. We are heading in the right direction. We have more or less recovered from our dim and distant dark days. We are doing all the right things.
"It is time for me to go and do the other things I want to do in life which I have put on hold for the last eight years."
But there will be challenges for his successor.
"We have become the leading proponent of regulatory evolution and change.to improve the industry. We have every intention of carrying that on. The industry is on the verge of some pretty significant changes over the next decade, consolidation, greater competition – all the things I and we have campaigned for – so that we now have regulators, MPs and customers agreeing with us.
"That aside, it is really rather straightforward. Severn Trent doesn't need me, Tony Wray, to execute on that."
Although single-minded and straightforward in his work, anyone who knows Mr Wray senses a restlessness to do other things in life – his building projects, a desire to travel, a wish to undertake voluntary and pro bono work "I am reaching a time of life where I want to go and do other things. I will go and live a different life."