Jersey Post appoints Tim Brown as chief executive

Jersey Post has appointed deputy chairman Tim Brown as its next chief executive. The Channel Island postal operator said today that its current chief, Kevin Keen, will be stepping down at the end of July after three years in charge.

The company said Keen had “fully delivered” in the turnaround task he was set by the board three years ago, helping Jersey Post cope with the dramatic change to its business from the loss of the island’s fulfillment industry.

Brown will be taking over a business that lost half its revenue when the UK government decided in April 2012 to end the sales tax exemption for low value goods being shipped to the mainland from the Channel Islands.

The tax exemption, called Low Value Consignment Relief, had encouraged e-commerce firms to set up their fulfillment operations in Jersey to ship items to customers in the UK, but the end of the exemption saw many relocating.

Mike Liston, the Jersey Post chairman, said: “With its radical restructuring now complete, and the business profitable despite the loss of half its annual revenues caused by the Low Value Consignment Relief demise, the company is in a strong position to exploit the opportunities for growth which Tim Brown’s diverse experience of the industry will facilitate.”

Brown

Jersey Post’s next chief has two decades of experience in the postal and logistics industry, and has been a non-executive director at the island postal operator since 2011, and deputy chairman since 2013.

A Chartered Public Finance Accountant and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, Brown is a former chief executive of UK postal regulator Postcomm, and has also held senior roles at Royal Mail and DHL Express, as well as in UK private sector parcel carrier City Link.

Commenting on his new appointment, Brown said: “The business has come a long way over the last few years thanks to Kevin and the team at Jersey Post. The challenge for the future is to build on the recent success to offset the continued decline in the traditional letter volumes affecting all postal operators. I believe my experience of the wider logistics and postal industry will bring benefits to the company and help it meet these future challenges.”

Outgoing chief Kevin Keen said he was “immensely proud” of what the company had achieved under his tenure given the “substantial challenges” it faced.

“I would like to pay tribute to the staff and Board of the company who have given me so much support in what was always intended to be a temporary role,” he said.