Chairman puts personal stamp on Royal Mail

Ian King & , : {}

As applications for the pursuit of Royal Mail arch senior physical education instructor begin dropping by the letterbox, Donald Brydon, the chairman, has a notice for carefree contenders: If you wish to have a fortune, dont come here.

Finding a inheritor to Adam Crozier, who is withdrawal to stick on ITV and who mostly faced critique over his �1 million compensate trip is maybe the greatest plea that Mr Brydon has faced given he proposed the pursuit ten months or so ago.

One or dual people pronounced theyd similar to to throw their hat in to the ring, to that my greeting was, you competence similar to to wait for and see what figure the ring is, Mr Brydon says.

For he is unequivocally transparent about the qualities indispensable by the successful applicant, who will be paid what we can equates to and it is a daunting list.

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There are 3 unequivocally big issues only to be removing on with the grant deficit, law and the appropriation of the Post Office network.

The qualities are that he or she contingency be a healthy personality and multidivisional. They contingency have the egghead genius to assimilate the complexity of the law that governs us. They have to be positively gentle with shift and handling change. They have to assimilate the ambiguities of traffic with Whitehall. They have to be flighty using Royal Mail is a goldfish bowl.

I would additionally similar to the authority to be structurally blind to see at the total operation and see a approach of using it, not only usurpation the existent structures. They contingency be good at pushing the blurb operation but perplexing to run each bit of it. And they contingency wish to see after the 175,000 people who work for us health and reserve has to be a priority here.

They contingency expostulate creation since whilst we positively do not wish to lose momentum, we are piece of a wider communications industry. And they contingency wish to lead the approach in patron passion. Our blurb operation both post and embrace mail and we contingency have passion for it.

Mr Brydon, who succeeded Allan Leighton as Royal Mails chairman, says that though Mr Crozier antagonised the unions with his cost-cutting, he has left a plain legacy: Adams legacy, what he primary told me when I arrived, was to only do the right thing. As an industrial transformation, where record equates to the revenues are approaching to be falling, what this equates to is that you have to distance your costs to compare revenue.

That meant changes for a unequivocally large series of people and that [how the routine has been handled] has been utterly considerable it has left on steadily. These processes are mostly loud and utterly volatile.

Mr Brydon, a former physical education instructor of the British Airways grant fund, assimilated Royal Mail after a renowned career in the City that enclosed twenty-two years at Barclays, where he was authority and arch senior physical education instructor of BZW Investment Management, as well as directorships of companies such as Amersham, Allied Domecq, Sun Life Provincial Holdings and ScottishPower. He is additionally authority of Smiths Group, the FTSE 100 engineering company.

So how did the Royal Mail pursuit come up? A headhunter rang me up. TNS [the marketplace investigate association that he chaired from 2006 to 2008] had only been taken over and I had a hole in my life. I felt I would similar to to do something inestimable with it.

I longed for a decent pursuit and there were copiousness going, caused by the monetary predicament and my primary greeting was that I was not sure. So I outlayed a lot of time articulate to people and, the some-more I got in to it, the some-more erotically appealing I found it.

Its the scale of the blurb operation and there are dual contribution I have use of to spell out that. One is that the blurb operation handles 72 million letters each day. Think about it each day! When you see at the big picture, thats an startling number. And the an startling feat by the people. They work unequivocally hard. They go out in the sleet in actuality the issue infrequently is interlude them going out in the sleet and each time I revisit a smoothness bureau the the same thing they unequivocally caring about removing the mail to their customers.

The second statistic is that there are some-more than 4,000 dog attacks on postmen on the people, putting themselves out each year. Thats fifteen each day. That gives you a clarity of the scale. Dont dont think about additionally how socially critical the blurb operation and the Post Office network are. Large chunks of the economy rely on a successful postal service.

Then there was the tip government [of Royal Mail] I was astounded how good they were. Adam has obviously fabricated a good team, and that was a good surprise.

The clincher for usurpation the job, Mr Brydon recalls, was the examination in to postal services by Richard Hooper, the former Ofcom boss, that endorsed part-privatisation: Clearly, I similar to a challenge, and this ticked the boxes. I have not been disappointed.

Mr Brydon, however, avoids observant either he supports Lord Mandelsons part-privatisation plans which, carrying been suspended last summer after vigour from Labour backbenchers, are approaching to be regenerated should the Conservatives win the election: My pursuit is to have certain Royal Mail is run properly. Who owns it is a make a difference for the shareholders. If the Government decides it wants a opposite shareholder, we have to run it to the final of that shareholder.

All I would contend is that those who conflict it have to be careful. The package, as a whole, had a little outrageous benefits for people operative at Royal Mail.

Once the plan was put on hold, Mr Brydon recalls, majority managers indispensable picking up: The air goes out of the unrestrained for a bit they had finished all this work. But the greatest pursuit for me after that was to be an envoy for Royal Mail with the domestic classes to get them to assimilate this was the greatest industrial mutation in the country, that involves lots of changes for lots of people.

I think they assimilate that, nonetheless [some of them] cant assimilate the economics. The association needs entrance to capital. We have additionally explained how critical parcels are and how, with the expansion of e-fulfilment, a poignant piece of the new investment is in barrows. It isnt only a box of putting a pouch of letters on your shoulder any more.

Mr Brydon admits that the unions primary preference to call a set upon in criticism at the gait of shift inside of Royal Mail had been disappointing. However, with negotiations still ongoing with the Communication Workers Union underneath the auspices of Acas, he insists that there is room for optimism: The actuality that we have left in to correct talks in a forum combined with outward assistance and have been going on sensitively suggests there is a complaint to compromise but us cheering at each other. There is positively a helpful air to the talks, a realism. These things [the need for change] are not done up by management, they are there for everybody to see and I think there is an bargain of that.

Mr Brydon hopes the still greeting to Mr Croziers departure, by some-more aged with the jubilant tinge the kinship took when Mr Leighton left, is a pointer that attitudes are changing: Maybe thats since they can see he [Crozier] was perplexing to do the right thing. If Adam Crozier and Allan Leighton hadnt discovered Royal Mail, there are an horrible lot some-more people who would not be around today.

Perhaps reasonably for Royal Mails chairman, Mr Brydons hobby is pciking up postcards privately from the Edwardian and First World War era. They yield a illusory amicable history, he says. Its a stupid thing to collect, in a little ways, since there were millions of these things sent.

If he and his new arch senior physical education instructor do their pursuit properly, hopefully millions some-more cards will be sent in the future.

C.V.

Born: May 25, 1945

Education: George Watsons College, Edinburgh; University of Edinburgh (BSc)

Career: 1970-77: BA (Airways grant fund) 1977-81: Barclays investment managers bureau 1981-86: Barclays Investment Management 1986-91: BZW Investment Management 1991-94: BZW Asset Management 1994-96: BZW, emissary arch senior physical education instructor 1997-date: AXA Investment Managers, arch executive, right away non-executive executive

Directorships: Stepped down as authority of London Metal Exchange to combine on his purpose at Royal Mail. Remains in the chair at Smiths Group

Q A

If you could shift only one thing in the monetary and blurb environment, what would it be?

A some-more made easy taxation complement

Who is or was your mentor?

No one particular but I have been unequivocally advantageous to work for a little good bosses, starting with Sos Green at British Airways and finale with Henri de Castries in AXA

Does income be the cause of you?

It is regularly accessible

What was the majority critical eventuality in your operative life?

Finding gangling genius on the British Airways engagement computer in 1971 and construction an early tracker account

Which blurb operation authority do you majority admire?

Henri de Castries is unequivocally impressive; so is Philip Bowman

What tool contingency you have?

BlackBerry. I additionally have a shining letter-opener What does care meant to you?

Clarity of purpose, open communication, a clarity of togetherness, working scrupulously

How do you relax?

I am not certain examination Reading FC counts as decrease these days. So, Reading or reading