East West Rail primed to start recruitment drive

The East West Railway Company is ready to launch a major recruitment campaign, as it prepares to assume direct responsibility for reinstating the former Varsity Line between Oxford and Cambridge in the summer.

The company has so far been run in shadow form, since the Government announced in November 2016 that it would establish an arms’ length body of the Department for Transport to oversee the scheme’s delivery.

To date, the project has been led by a team of interim appointments working with Network Rail to reduce the cost of the scheme, while it continues to explore options to design, build, finance and eventually operate the new railway.

RAIL can exclusively reveal that a permanent team will now be recruited to oversee NR’s delivery of the line’s western section (Bedford-Bicester), which is currently in progress, and to continue developing a potentially vertically integrated delivery model for the central section (BedfordCambridge).

RAIL understands that current EWR Chairman Rob Brighouse will remain in post, and that executive level recruiters Odgers Berndtson has been appointed to lead the search for the newly created role of chief executive officer.

The recruitment campaign will also include senior management positions in a range of disciplines, including finance and commercial, strategy, engineering, consenting, stakeholder management and project management.

A source close to the project told RAIL: “Recruiting a chief executive officer is a key appointment - someone who has the experience to drive the programme forward, who is motivated by the wider economic benefits the railway can bring, and who is willing to break the mould.

“The search will look both inside the UK rail industry and more broadly. The focus will be on attracting diverse candidates with a wide range of experiences and who want to push the boundaries.”