DMA postal affairs role goes to Royal Mail's Walsh
The DMA has recruited Alex Walsh, who handled Royal Mail’s relationships with mailing houses and trade associations, as head of postal affairs.
While Walsh has already started work, the DMA is still looking for candidates for the more senior role of director of media channel development, to whom Walsh will report.
The two roles were created to replace the single role of director of industry development and postal affairs, left vacant when David Robottom left in October to set up his own consultancy. The division recognised the increased importance of channels other than mail in the industry.
James Kelly, DMA managing director, said: “Alex brings a wealth of knowledge of the whole postal industry. He understands all the issues we are concerned with as an association and the role that we play.”
Walsh started his career as a direct marketing agency account manager, going on to spend 10 years at Royal Mail. Initially marketing postcode data, he progressed to monitoring legislative development affecting direct marketing and developing sales promotions for business customers.
He spent two-and-a-half years in his most recent role as head of mailing agencies and trade associations.
“Having worked with the DMA for at least the last five years I can’t pretend we have always seen eye to eye but I have always respected them and their point of view,” he said.
Explaining his reasons for joining the DMA, he said he wanted to change people’s views and looked forward to helping DMA members to negotiate the great changes under way in the postal industry and raising awareness in the industry of environmental responsibilities and quality standards.
News Focus: Post – DMA appoints expert to deal with postal affairs
Direct Response, p 9 02-06-2006
By Hugh Filman
06 February, 2006
The DMA has brought in the man who handled Royal Mail’s relationships with mailing houses and trade associations to deal with postal affairs.
The appointment of Alex Walsh as head of postal affairs comes as the direct marketing industry adjusts to the introduction of full competition in the postal sector and prepares for Royal Mail’s move to size-based pricing at the end of August.
Walsh’s new role encompasses some of the duties that were handled by David Robottom, who left as director of postal affairs and industry development at the DMA last November.
It puts Walsh, who will report to a new director of media, right in the hot seat as many of the association’s members try to make sense of the ongoing changes.
“The DMA has a role to make the complicated simple, to enable its members to take informed decisions – to cut through the clutter and confusion,” said Walsh.
“It is useful to have experts who can trawl through 270-page documents and take out the important bits or sum it up in a few words and say what it actually means for the industry.
“Liberalisation is one area where there is confusion,” Walsh added. “We would like to see genuine competition arriving, providing people with more choice. Hopefully, it will also drive innovation, which the industry desperately needs.”
