If Tim Parker’s record as a slash-and-burn chief executive is anything to go by, Londoners had better brace themselves for rapid change.

The controversial former boss of the AA, Kwik-Fit and Clarks shoes prides himself on making quick and dispassionate decisions, and he will be no different in his new role as Boris Johnson’s deputy mayor.

Mr Parker, 52, told The Times that Mr Johnson’s greatest opportunity to make big change was in the first days of his administration. “You have to try to understand what you have to do in the first 100 days or so if you possibly can. If there are big changes you want to make, you have to try and get on with them,” he said.

The advice echoed that of Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York, who made a similar suggestion when he visited Mr Johnson soon after the election.

Mr Parker became a multimillionaire on the back of making changes – usually painful changes at companies such as the AA where, in the first 100 days, he oversaw the loss of 3,500 jobs when it was taken over by CVC Capital, the private equity firm which brought him in to run the business.

It was partly those actions which led to the trade union furore over private equity last year, culminating in a Treasury Select Committee investigation into the sector and a rise in the rate of capital gains tax to 18 per cent.

It also led to the dubbing of Mr Parker – a new entry on the Sunday Times Rich List this year – as the “Prince of Darkness” after he departed from the AA £40 million richer.

He defended his track record and said that he was “here to shed light”.

“What I’m most proud of is that most of the companies I’ve run have experienced strong, sustainable growth,” he said. “The things of which I’m proud are actually laying the foundations for businesses which have done well.”

Mr Parker acknowledged that he will need to tread a bit more gently than in the private equity industry. But he is confident that he can overcome any obstacles and said that he would bring about the best value for money. “I’ve always felt that one of the things I have been able to do in a business context is make lots of change.”

Given that Mr Parker intends to implement such change in the first 100 days, he might be expected to have a good grasp of his priorities. Not so, and he was coy about what the change might be. “I’ve got an awful lot to learn and I have no preconceived ideas” Mr Parker, who will be chairman of Transport for London, admits that he has employed a driver in the past to commute from his Hampshire home to London. He says that the journey was made unbearable by traffic and now he uses the Tube and Ken Livingstone’s bendy buses to get around the capital.

He will not take a salary and said he would not be “beholden to anybody”. “Nobody can turn around and say, ‘he’s here to feather his own nest’ because there’s no nest to feather.”

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