Sheffield, England, United Kingdom
I have worked in the railway industry for over 35 years most recently culminating in a 5 year period in Australia where I again demonstrated my ability to lead and implement significant transformational change in large and complex organisations. As Downer Group's CEO, Rail I revitalised their rolling stock services division transforming what was a collection of small rolling stock manufacturing companies with ageing processes, equipment and methodologies into what is now the powerhouse of Australia's rail tier 1 suppliers. I initially went to Australia in late 2010 to lead the turnaround of the troubled Waratah train project, the largest rolling stock project in Australia's history and the first rolling stock private sector-funded PPP in the world. When I took this project on, I was told that it was doomed by just about every banker, journalist, economist, politician and railway person in Australia! However, under my leadership and having built a world-beating project team, Waratah recovered 10 months of delay in its final two years and is now recognised as the benchmark for project delivery, quality and customer experience in Australia's rail industry. Two follow-on orders were later placed for more Waratahs, and both were delivered on time. I have extensive knowledge and experience in railway project delivery and railway operations. Before joining Downer, I held senior roles in both projects and train operations at Virgin Trains where I was Production Director responsible for all daily train service issues, operations and engineering. Virgin Trains was, at the time, the largest UK InterCity (IC) train operator. In my career, I have worked as Supplier, Operator and Client in lead/executive and advisory/support roles on new train projects spanning suburban double-deck trains (Waratah in NSW), high speed IC tilting trains (Pendolino/Super Voyager in UK), high speed IC non-tilt trains (Azuma/IEP/Voyager in UK) and very high speed trains (Eurostar Velaro/3-Caps/NoL trainsets in UK, France and Belgium).
While my full attention is focused on project managing my own self-build house, I have carried out a number of initiatives for parts of the rail industry that are close to my heart. These include: 1. Motivational speaking around new fleet introductions and the transformational change opportunities that stem from them. 2. How to successfully implement Supplier Relationship Management, which is the only world best practice methodology of managing strategic long-term suppliers such as those providing rolling stock service provision/maintenance contracts. 3. Delivery of relationship improvement workshops for train operators and train service providers/maintainers to develop the relationship from a contractual/transactional one to a one-team highly effective genuine partnership.
Having led the recovery of the Waratah Train Project for Downer, I was then asked to lead a similar transformational change across the rest of the rail division. Downer is a large multi-discipline engineering and services company but the rail division was small, 2,700 staff out of a Group that then totalled 20,000+. It was effectively a collection of small regional rail manufacturing and maintenance sites that had been acquired over a number of years. While integration had occurred at a surface level, systems and methodologies were significantly behind contemporary world best practice. The rail division had a turnover of $1bn in 2013-14 split between Waratah, regular work such as component overhaul, maintenance, overhaul and asset management of heavy haul freight locomotives, wagons and passenger vehicles, plus income from joint ventures. The regional diversity of the factories and depots that Downer had gave it a unique breadth of capability for building, maintaining and overhauling all rail vehicles. During my time as CEO, I built a world-class team and achieved these milestones, amongst others. 1. Rationalisation of sites from 32 to 20 with staff numbers reduced to 1,450 to reflect the most efficient methods and places for work to take place; a real challenge in a country the size of Australia. 2. Development of the Downer Production System to provide standard operations across all depots enabling the delivery of increased certainty, greater efficiency and improved value. 3. Investment in contemporary equipment and upskilling of staff. 4. Leadership development at all levels from Team Leader to Executive; making people responsible and holding them accountable, but also giving them the skills and tools to do this. 5. Signature of a $1bn 10yr ground-breaking service provision contract with Pacific National in August 2015; revolutionary for Australia’s rail industry. This was the precursor for the sale of the freight rail business to Progress Rail in 2017.
KD is an incorporated JV set up to bid for and run passenger transport franchised/contracted out operations. While on the Board, KD operated Yarra Trams in Melbourne (largest tram network in the world), G:Link in the Gold Coast (light rail system that started operation in July 2014) and ATE (one of the largest bus operators in Australia). Having previously been in senior roles overseeing the operation and delivery of franchised rail services, and therefore regularly reporting to Boards such as this one, this role was invaluable for my personal development. I was supported and mentored by a hugely experienced Chair, Linda Bardo Nicholls, as well as other Board Members with extensive experience at this level, particularly Annabelle Chaplain from the Downer Group Board. This allowed me to understand and quickly implement an appropriate style and set of behaviours to support the KD senior management team. This entailed maintaining an appropriate level of governance while not stifling the team's freedom to develop and deliver the franchised business for which they were responsible. Holding them accountable for that delivery was of course essential, and I provided personal support and mentoring for some of the executives to help them achieve their goals. But it is always a fine line between making senior people responsible and holding them accountable, and just directing them due to one's own experience such that they are then absolved of all accountability. This period as a KD Board Member undoubtedly sealed my personal skills and reputation in being able to support, advise and mentor while ensuring that the accountability remains with the responsible executive. I also spoke at many conferences to outline my experiences from the UK of what works well with a franchised passenger transport system - and what does not! A massively illuminating and thoroughly enjoyable 2+ years on the Board of Keolis Downer which I reflect on as some of my most rewarding work in Australia.
Having previously reviewed this very distressed project, first for the NSW government and then for Downer, I arrived in Australia fully aware of the mess that it was in. The Waratah Train Project was to build 626 inner suburban double deck rail vehicles for the Sydney commuter train network, and maintain them for the duration of a 32 year PPP contract. This project was the largest rolling stock project in Australian history and replaced life-expired non air-conditioned 3/4-car trains with state of the art 8-car trains. Each vehicle's assembly was split 70/30 between CRRC's factory in Changchun, China with the remainder of each vehicle being finished at Downer's own factory near Newcastle in the Hunter Valley, NSW. When I took over the project, it was 18 months late and $650m over budget. 2 years later, trains were delivered to the revised programme with high quality output from China at 3 trains per month and a Lean flowline process implemented in the Downer factory that won the Excellence in Manufacturing Process award at the 2012 Hunter Manufacturing Awards (HMA), and Excellence in Training award at the 2013 HMA. I put together a world-class train delivery team and a world-class train maintenance team to deliver high quality trains to the travelling public in Sydney for the next 30 years. The final train was delivered into passenger service just 8 months late to the original delivery schedule, recovering 10 months of delay during the last 2 years of the project. The project's key goal that I used as a motivator for the project was that "the Waratah becomes a transport icon that the people of NSW are proud to use". This is a goal that the project team absolutely saw achieved, and the train has transformed the lives of Sydney commuters.
Carried out a range of roles including the following. 1. Senior adviser to DfT on the operability of rolling stock PPP contractual arrangements; achieved an outcome whereby the performance regime for IEP was amended to make it both effective by providing positive incentives to the supplier rather than being punitive such that overall costs were driven up. 2. Review of the deliverability of the Waratah Project in NSW, Australia for the NSW government; the open and frank method in which this review was carried out led to me being asked to carry out a second review of the project for the train builder, Downer. It was this second review that led to me being asked to go to Australia to manage the rescue of the project. 3. Adviser to Sir Andrew Foster in the independent review of the IEP project's value for money; a process whereby all interested parties in the industry were interviewed and assessed by Sir Andrew with support from two technical advisers, myself and Professor Andrew McNaughton. The report led to a significant change in direction in the IEP project. 4. Adviser to Eurostar during contract negotiations for the Velaro train build contract; this was the first time that the (then) government-owned company had purchased new rolling stock and it had no experience in negotiating the maintenance and engineering support contract that was necessary to support the high performance required for the new trains. I was able to provide this experience to ensure that the contract reached signature to a very challenging timescale. The new trains have since successfully entered service.
Responsible for the delivery of the train services and directing Virgin's strategy and policy for all operations and engineering issues. Line management of 750 staff within the department and oversight of Train Service Provision contracts with Alstom and Bombardier employing 1,300 staff maintaining and servicing the Virgin train fleets. Implemented the VHF Dec 08 timetable including 32% more services with no additional drivers recruited and increased train availability.
Responsible for all engineering and fleet issues for Virgin's West Coast services. Implemented a Supplier Relationship Management strategy with the key Train Service Provider Alstom and oversaw an increase in daily availability from 41 to 46 trains out of 53, a reliability increase from 2,000 to 10,000 miles per casualty, an increase in PPM of 10 percentage points at a time when passenger growth swelled based on the improved exceptional performance of the new Pendolino trains just introduced on the route.
Lead and managed the Pendolino train build project including responsibility for the build programme, fitness for purpose of the train design, build quality, safety approvals and delivery into passenger service. Represented the Leasing Company to the supplier under an Agency Agreement. Project was running 2 years late at time of takeover and delivered in full with no further delay.
Supporting customers to achieve safety assurance and other regulatory approvals of their new trains to operate on the UK rail network