Key management team finalised

Abellio has appointed its management team for the new West Midlands Trains franchise that begins on December 10, replacing the existing London Midland operations.

Adrian Thompson will be HR Director, a role he has performed in an interim basis for Abellio for18 months.

Neil Bamford, current LM Asset Maintenance Director, will be Engineering Director. Before joining LM he was Head of Fleet at CrossCountry.

Current Greater Anglia Finance Director Andy Camp takes up the Commercial Director role at WMT. He has been with GA since 2012.

Lesley Heath remains as Head of Safety and Environment, which has been upgraded to an executive position. She joined LM two years ago, having performed safety roles at East Coast, First Great Western, Merseyrail and ScotRail.

The Finance Director’s role will be filled by David Lindsay, who was the finance lead on the Abellio bid for WMT. He has worked for Abellio for six years.

Mark Steward will be Operations Director, having previously been Passenger Services Director for LM. He was Operations Director for South West Trains until August, before moving to LM.

Two new positions have been created to reflect different operations in the franchise.

Richard Brooks, currently LM Commercial Director, will be West Midlands Customer Service Director. This role covers the area around Birmingham, where Brooks will work with West Midlands Rail and the West Midlands Combined Authority.

Andrew Conroy will perform a similar role for the West Coast part of the franchise. He has worked on the WMT mobilisation team for three months, having transferred from East Midlands Trains where he was Customer Service Director.

Also from within the WMT bid team, Jane Fisher has been appointed Transition and Projects Director.

These appointments follow Jan Chaudhry-van der Velde joining WMT as Managing Director. He leaves the MD’s position at Merseyrail on December 10.