The new chair of the competition watchdog has pledged to speed up its decision making and bring in outside expertise as part of plans to reshape the agency following months of criticism.

Doug Gurr, a former Amazon executive who was parachuted in to lead the body after ministers ousted his predecessor last week, said “lengthy and uncertain investigations” were hamstringing businesses and leading to unnecessary costs.

“Good decisions, clear decisions, rapid decisions — that’s what you tell us you need and that’s on us to deliver,” he wrote in the Financial Times.

The comments mark the most explicit acknowledgement yet that the regulator will chart a corrective course amid anger in Westminster and the City over its approach to growth.

In a major intervention last week, Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer forced the former chair, Marcus Bokkerink, out of his role due to his “different approach” on delivering growth.

Critics have accused the CMA of unnecessarily meddling in investigations and dampening the appeal of the UK as a place to invest. It triggered fury from the boss of Microsoft in 2023 after initially blocking the company’s tie up with Activision Blizzard.

Starmer launched a public rebuke of its strategy in front of international investors at his government’s inaugural investment summit last year, saying the body needed to “take[..] growth as seriously as this room does.”

Both the Chancellor and Prime Minister have since piled pressure on regulators to row in behind their growth “mission” and sent letters to 17 regulators on Christmas eve demanding ideas.