Ex-UK post chief advises Deloitte
Former Royal Mail chief John Roberts has been taken on by Deloitte Consulting as an adviser on the postal industry.
Roberts, who will help the post industry team to develop business across Europe, says the postal sector faces “major challenges ahead. With the advent of e-mail and e-commerce, postal companies not only compete with new technologies but must embrace them if they are to succeed”, he says.
Roberts, who joined the Post Office, as it was then called, in 1967, became chief executive in 1995 and retired last December.
Under his management, it underwent significant change including the introduction of information technology systems for international network automation and customer relationship management.
The last two years of his career were overshadowed by the mail operator’s dire financial problems and what Patricia Hewitt, trade and industry secretary, called its “Victorian” management practices.
Industry observers recognised that not all the group’s problems could be laid at Roberts’ feet.
But the chief executive made two blunders before leaving. First, he told a Commons committee there would need to be 30,000 job cuts at the operator, without forewarning or consulting postal unions.
Second, he presided over the Post Office’s expensive and unpopular name change to Consignia, which was later reversed at further cost. Marianne Brun-Rovet
