Marisa Cassoni stepping down from UK Royal Mail

Royal Mail announced today that Marisa Cassoni, Group Finance Director, will be stepping down from her role and leaving the company at the end of December.

Marisa Cassoni has been with the Company for over four years and has been a key member of the team which has seen the Company through its successful three-year renewal plan. Royal Mail is now moving into the next stage of its development, with the market opening to full competition from January 1, and the process to find a new Group Finance Director will now start.

Allan Leighton, Chairman, said: “When I first arrived, Marisa was the only executive who had experience of turnaround and she has played a valuable part in sorting out both the finance of the Royal Mail and in creating a platform of financial control for us to move forward on.”

Royal Mail finance director to step down
Financial Times UK, London Ed3, Sec. FRONT PAGE – FIRST SECTION, p 1 10-26-2005
By By JEAN EAGLESHAM and ELIZABETH RIGBY

The Royal Mail finance director will resign today, leaving the postal operator with a crucial board vacancy as it faces critical government and regulatory decisions about its state ownership, structure and funding.

Marisa Cassoni is quitting in spite of being held in high regard by Allan Leighton, the Royal Mail chairman who is thought to have wanted her to stay.

But Ms Cassoni decided to go rather than commit to the next four-year phase of price controls, having seen through the three-year turnround programme instigated by Mr Leighton that has transformed Royal Mail from Pounds 1m-per-working-day losses to Pounds 2m-a-day profits.

Her departure, under discussion for a few months, comes at a critical juncture for Royal Mail. It is a particular blow, given Royal Mail is at loggerheads with Postcomm, its regulator, over fundamental issues about its financial strength and future prospects when the UK market is opened to full competition on January 1. Royal Mail, which is technically insolvent, is lobbying the government to plug at least some of its Pounds 4bn pensions deficit. It is also canvassing ministerial support for its battle with Postcomm over proposed price controls to 2010, which Mr Leighton said would send Royal Mail into decline.

Choosing a successor to Ms Cassoni, who will stay until a replacement is found, could be tricky. Finance directors’ salaries at FTSE retail companies have risen at nearly four times the rate of chief executives’ since 2002, according to research from Halliwell Consulting.