Keen to replace Carr at Jersey Post

Jersey Post has announced that Kevin Keen will replace Ian Carr as chief executive of the company. Carr will step down at the end of this month after two years in the role, and a total of 36 years in the States-owned utility.

After training as an accountant, Keen has held a number of senior roles within Jersey’s business community over many years. They include chairman of Jersey Water; managing director of Jersey Dairy; managing director of Le Riches Stores, and finance director of Le Riches Group. He is also former president of the Jersey Chamber of Commerce.

Jersey Post confirmed for contractual reasons, “Keen’s appointment as chief executive will be interim until the end of the year, when it is anticipated that a permanent appointment will be made”.

Jersey Post’s chairman, Mike Liston said: “Kevin Keen is an accomplished business professional with broad leadership experience in consumer markets and he is ideally placed too, to steer the company and its people through the many changes already announced”.

Liston also paid tribute to Carr, who he said had been in post during the most challenging period in the organisation’s history.

“Ian has been at the sharp end of an unprecedented and on-going program of change involving large-scale job losses, new working practices and business process automation, as the company fights for the future of the public postal service in the face of radical regulatory policies and changing social and technological trends.”

Liston also confirmed that Carr’s departure was entirely amicable on both sides.

The chairman added that with a lack of public subsidy and increased competition, Jersey Post must develop its business strategy to explore new services.

“Unlike most National postal operators, Jersey Post receives no public subsidy to compensate for the financial losses inherent in the traditional letters service (the Universal Service Obligation) which it provides to the community, and so it relies on earnings from other activities to fund it. With radical competition policy now threatening the loss of Fulfilment sector packets business to global postal giants, there is a new urgency to accelerate Jersey Post’s strategy to develop new business opportunities especially in on-demand, digital consumer services,” he said.

Post&Parcel reported in March that Jersey Post was given the go-ahead to move to a five-day delivery week.