An Post chiefs step down in huge shake-up
An Post has parted company with its chief operating officer, Larry Donald, and commercial director, Derek Kickham. Both were former ESB managers and had been brought in by the former chief executive Donal Curtin, also from the ESB, three years ago to head his controversial overhaul of the postal group.
Donald has already left the company and Kickham is expected to depart within the next few months. Both their titles have been scrapped under a new organisational structure announced last week by Donal Connell, who replaced Curtin in early July.
The sales and marketing, and retail operations managers, who until now have reported to Kickham, have become part of the group’s top line of management — answerable to Connell.
The functions of the collection and delivery and mail-processing directors, which were under Donald, will be rolled into one, called mails director, which has yet to be filled. The group is expected to appoint a head of strategy.
Connell said: “This team will work together to bring vision and leadership to the organisation and to develop the next strategic plan, which will enable An Post to achieve and maintain competitiveness and respond positively to changing customer and market demands across our business.”
An Post’s traditional dominance in a number of areas is currently under threat, with Charlie McCreevy, the EU commissioner for internal markets, having proposed a new law that will open up the European postal markets to competition by 2009.
Under the proposals, post weighing less than 50 grams will no longer be monopolised by State-owned postal companies such as An Post.
The move comes only a month after a key adviser to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) said the government had breached EU competition laws in 1999 by extending An Post’s lucrative €50m-a-year contract for delivering social-welfare payments. The advocate general, Christine Stix-Hackl, said the government’s practices run “directly counter to the logic” of free competition.
Therefore it is likely that the government will be forced to review its procurement policy for this service.
Meanwhile, an announcement is expected within weeks on the position of chief executive of An Post’s new financial services joint venture with Fortis, the Belgian bancassurer.
The euro 112m partnership will offer a broad range of services to consumers, including mortgages, insurance and credit cards, starting early next year.
